A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.

Well, we're still in the middle of it. And it doesn't show any sign of going away. And these attacks that were - that seemed so odd at the time, with "Satanic Verses," because we didn't have any context for this. You know, where did that come from? It seemed to come out of nowhere.

I don't think people cry reading 'Midnight's Children,' but a lot of people seem to cry watching the movie.

I determined to make my peace with Islam, even at the cost of my pride. Those who were surprised and displeased by what I did perhaps failed to see that ... I wanted to make peace between the warring halves of the world, which were also the warring halves of my soul.

Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.

Dissensions between Muslim nations run at least as deep, if not deeper, than those nations' resentment of the West.

A man who catches History's eye is thereafter bound to a mistress from whom he will never escape.