Quotes from Salman Rushdie

This was a species with an exceptional ability to ignore its approaching doom.

Sometimes it is necessary to touch bottom in order to know which way is up; to go a long distance down the wrong road before you know the right way

habit of calling each other 'Jim'. No darlings or honeys or babes for them. In his low American drawl and her bright English chirp they Jimmed the Old Year out. 'Hey, Jim?' 'Yes, Jim?' 'Happy New Year, Jim.' 'Happy New Year to you too, Jim.' 'I love you, Jim.' 'I love you too, Jim.' 1990 arrived with a smile in the company of Jim and Jim.

The world is not ideas, rich boy; the world is no place for dreamers or their dreams; the world, little Snotnose, is things. Things and their makers rule the world; look at Birla, and Tata, and all the powerful: they make things. For things, the country is run. Not for people.

Life is a shit sandwich. The more bread you've got, the less shit you eat.

I permit myself this one generalization: Americans have mastered the universe, but have no dominion over their mouths; whereas India is impotent, but her children tend to have excellent teeth.)

I had thought myself free of him, but that was vanity. Death shows us the power of blood.

you lost parents. Your grief defines you and shuts you off from other people. That's what I think.

Murder is a crime of violence against the murdered person. Suicide is a crime of violence against those who remain alive.

but something was given in exchange for what was lost

Religion has moved out of the private space. (...) The moment it moves into the public sphere it becomes everybody's business.

We underestimate our fellow humans because we underestimate ourselves. They - we - are capable of being much more than we seem

I had learned that secrets were not always a bad thing.

Arré Ahmed!" Amina Sinai yelled, "Janum, the baby! It's coming—bang on time!

People can delight in the saddest of sob-stuff, as long as they find it beautiful.

But it was Genesis that got him, the Vulgate that was his namesake Saint Jerome's work. Genesis, especially chapter one, verse three. Dixitque Deus: fiat lux. Et facta est lux. Translated by himself into his personal Bombay "Wulgate": And God said, Cheap Italian motor car, beauty soap of the film star. And there was Lux. Please, Daddy, why did God want a small Fiat and a bar of soap, and also please, why did he get the soap only? Why couldn't he make the car?

The blues is just another name for not having any place

Don't ask who planted the bomb; in those days there were many such planters, many gardeners of violence.

El hecho de estar vivo te compensa de las cosas que te hace la vida.

Mr. Eagle, you are not a realized man. That is your weakness and also your power. Before one realizes oneself one has the optimism of ignorance. It can be the saving of one's life. Once realized, one faces the terror of knowing what it is you are and have done...the realized man can have a profound effect on the world about him; he must bear the consequences, and guilt, of that as well...

This is how we are: we fall in love with each other's strengths, but love deepens toward permanence when we fall in love with each other's weaknesses.

The War was not really a Battle It was a single Instant of Doing They became two Golden Suns Goddess and Woman Flaming, blinding, burning Utterly consuming the Enemy In their fire.

Life and death are both meaningless. They happen or don't happen for reasons that have not weight, from which you learn nothing. There is no wisdom in the world. We are all fortune's fools. Here is the earth and it is so beautiful and we are so lucky to be here with one another and we are so stupid and what happens to us is so stupid and we don't deserve our stupid luck.

If one had never had the good fortune of meeting Borges, then meeting his library was the next best thing