Such were the factors that detached Ormus Cama from the ordinary ties of family life. The ties that strangle us, which we call love. Because of the l… - Salman Rushdie

But love is what we want, not freedom. Who then is the unluckier man? The beloved, who is given his heart's desire and must for ever after fear its loss, or the free man, with his unlooked-for liberty, naked and alone between the captive armies of the earth?

Everest silences you...when you come down, nothing seems worth saying, nothing at all. You find the nothingness wrapping you up, like a sound. Non-being. You can't keep it up, of course. the world rushes in soon enough. What shuts you up is, I think, the sight you've had of perfection: why speak if you can't manage perfect thoughts, perfect sentences? It feels like a betrayal of what you've been through. But it fades; you accept that certain compromises, closures, are required if you're to continue.

[On the period immediately after the Iranian fatwa when Rushdie was in hiding.] I really resist the idea of being dragged back to that period of time that you insist on bringing up.

"Two things form the bedrock of any open society — freedom of expression and rule of law. If you don’t have those things, you don’t have a free country."

[Don’t allow religious hooligans to dictate terms (The Times of India, January 16, 2008)]