Salman Rushdie Quotes

Nobody can judge an internal injury by the size of the superficial wound.

"Without water we are nothing", the traveler thought. "Even an emperor, denied water, would swiftly turn to dust. Water is the real monarch and we are all its slaves."

The inevitable triumph of illusion over reality that was the single most obvious truth about the history of the human race.

For an instant, silence, noisier than a waterfall.

If I were asked for a one-sentence sound
bite on religion, I would say I was against it.

Life is lived forward but is judged in reverse.

At the beginning of all love there is a private treaty each of the lovers makes with himself or herself, an agreement to set aside what is wrong with the other for the sake of what is right. Love is spring after winter. It comes to heal life's wounds, inflicted by the unloving cold. When that warmth is born in the heart the imperfections of the beloved are as nothing, less than nothing, and the secret treaty with oneself is easy to sign. The voice of doubt is stilled. Later, when love fades, the secret treaty looks like folly, but if so, it's a necessary folly, born of lovers' belief in beauty, which is to say, in the possibility of the impossible thing, true love.

Any story worth its salt can handle a little shaking up.

...in words and pickles, I have immortalized my memories, although distortions are inevitable in both methods. We must live, I'm afraid, with the shadows of imperfections.

Once you have been in an earthquake you know, even if you survive without a scratch, that like a stroke in the heart, it remains in the earth's breast, horribly potential, always promising to return, to hit you again, with an even more devastating force.

Believe in your own eyes and you'll get into a lot of trouble, hot water, a mess.

It is all for love. Which is a wonderful and dashing matter. But which can also be a very foolish thing.

You can get anywhere in Pakistan if you know people, even into jail.

"A little bird whispers in my ear: "Be fair! Nobody, no country, has a monopoly of untruth.

Freedom is not a tea party, India. Freedom is a war.