Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.

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.

If you want to be a serious writer, then you have to write what there is to write about. If you're going to pull your punches and second-guess yourself and not do things because you're worried, then don't write. Stay home and do something else.

I'd wanted to create a storm so that I could become more famous and richer.

No, I don't think it's fair to label Islam 'violent.' But I will say that to my knowledge, no writer has ever gone into hiding for criticizing the Amish.

Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms.

A thing that happens to migrants is that they lose many of the traditional things which root identity, which root the self.