A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.

What's real and what's true aren't necessarily the same.

In writing 'The Satanic Verses,' I think I was writing for the first time from the whole of myself. The English part, the Indian part. The part of me that loves London, and the part that longs for Bombay. And at my typewriter, alone, I could indulge this.

The lessons one learns at school are not always the ones the school thinks it's teaching.

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.

What I've always seen in writers and artists is the courage it takes to make an original work of art. I think the real risks in literature are linguistic and intellectual, and I hope we can highlight those, as well as political courage.

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