It seems to me it's perfectly possible to vehemently disagree with a piece of work and to say that it's offensive and insulting and so on and so on. And you're absolutely entitled to do that and to speak back, if you like, against that piece of speech with all the vehemence at your disposal. I mean, that's legitimate. Even other things. People have a right to demonstrate.
Salman RushdieDoris Lessing really doesn't care what the critics say. In fact, she orders her publishers not to send her the reviews and gets cross with them if they do because she doesn't want that in her head. She's going where she's going, and that's where she wants to go.
Salman RushdieFree societies...are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom's existence.
Salman RushdieIn today's US, it's possible for almost anyone - women, gays, African-Americans, Jews - to run for, and be elected to, high office.
Salman Rushdie