You've got a generation of young men - almost all are young men - in situations of great economic hardship, where they don't really have work. The chances of them making a decent life for themselves, of making a family, living in a kind of decent, happy way, are very, very remote. It's very hard for them to ever even have that as a dream, so when people are that deprived of the ordinary hope of human beings, it creates anger. And that anger can be channeled by unscrupulous persons, whether secular or religious leaders, and there's been a lot of that.
Salman RushdieYou can adhere to your faith, but that faith needs to march in line with the rest of the world and needs to find a way of expressing itself in the modern world.
Salman RushdiePeople must be protected from prejudice against their person. But people cannot be protected from prejudice against their ideas - because otherwise we're all done.
Salman RushdieWhen I'm writing a book, sentence by sentence, I'm not thinking theoretically. I'm just trying to work out the story from inside the characters I've got.
Salman RushdieReality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
Salman Rushdie