There is a point beyond which conciliation looks like capitulation. I do not believe I passed that point, but others have thought otherwise.

You don't fight radical conservatism with not-quite-so radical conservatism.

That's the trouble with you sad-city types: a place has to be miserable and dull as ditchwater before you believe it's real.

I don't think it is always necessary to take up the anti-colonial -- or is it post-colonial? -- cudgels against English. What seems to me to be happening is that those people who were once colonized by the language are now rapidly remaking it, domesticating it, becoming more and more relaxed about the way they use it -- assisted by the English language's enormous flexibility and size, they are carving out large territories for themselves within its frontiers.

Prophet Mohammed would have no objection to The Satanic Verses.

You don't just - you often have to defend the freedoms of people you don't like, you know, whose work you don't like, because freedom of speech is not just for serious people. It's also for trashy people. So, and, unfortunately, this is at the trashy end of the scale.

Bread and books: food for the body and food for the soul - what could be more worthy of our respect, and even love?