Your blasphemy, Salman, can't be forgiven. To set your words against the Words of God.

Sometimes, people trying to commit suicide manage it in a manner that leaves them breathless with astonishment.

Make as much racket as you like people. Noise is life and an excess of noise is a sign that life is good. There will be time for us all to be quiet when we are safely dead.

I get a lot of letters - a lot of letters saying, who knew that you were funny?

Even when things are at their worst, there's a little voice in your head saying, 'Good story!'

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.

Live on, survive, for the earth gives forth wonders. It may swallow your heart, but the wonders keep on coming. You stand before them bareheaded, shriven. What is expected of you is attention.