Captain Ahab drowned, he reminded himself; it was the trimmer, Ishmael, who survived.

Hyperrealism can create an atmosphere of surrealism because nobody sees the world in such detail.

Realism can break a writer's heart.

One of the reasons my name is Rushdie is that my father was an admirer of Ibn Rush'd, the 12th century Arab philosopher known as Averroes in the West. In his time, he was making the non-literalist case for interpreting the Koran.

One minute you've got a lucky star watching over you and the next instant it's done a bunk.

Is birth always a fall?

When...did it become irrational to dislike religion, any religion, even to dislike it vehemently? When did reason get redescribed as unreason? When were the fairy stories of the superstitious placed above criticism, beyond satire? A religion was not a race. It was an idea, and ideas stood (or fell) because they were strong enough (or too weak) to withstand criticism, not because they were shielded from it. Strong ideas welcomed dissent.