I learned: the first lesson of my life: nobody can face the world with his eyes open all the time. - Salman Rushdie

Khattam-Shud,' he Said slowly 'is the arch-enemy of all stories, even of language itself. He is the prince of silence and the foe of speech. And because everything ends, because dreams ens, stories end, life ends, at the finish of everything we use his name. 'It is finished,' we tell one another, 'it's over, Khattam-Shud; the end.

It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.

We are described into corners, and then we must describe ourselves out of corners.