Salman Rushdie

"Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit."

"New York Times special feature on Rushdie, 1999"

"British Council: Contemporary writers: Salman Rushdie"

"I do not envy people who think they have a complete explanation of the world, for the simple reason that they are obviously wrong."

"Nothing really improves us. Whatever improves one person will disimprove another. Some people are paralyzed by the consciousness of death, other people live with it. … The fatwa certainly made me thin…"

"God, Satan, Paradise, and Hell all vanished one day in my fifteenth year, when I quite abruptly lost my faith. … and afterwards, to prove my new-found atheism, I bought myself a rather tasteless ham s…"

"For many people, I've ceased to be a human being. I've become an issue, a bother, an "affair." … And has it really been so long since religions persecuted people, burning them as heretics, drowning th…"

"It matters, it always matters, to name rubbish as rubbish … to do otherwise is to legitimize it."