I think anyone who knows me at all knows that I have been a movie addict all my life. I grew up in a city obsessed by cinema and where there are cinemas on every street corner.
Salman RushdieI've never seen anywhere in the world as beautiful as Kashmir. It has something to do with the fact that the valley is very small and the mountains are very big, so you have this miniature countryside surrounded by the Himalayas, and it's just spectacular. And it's true, the people are very beautiful too.
Salman RushdieIf you want to draw people into the story, you really have to write as if you're writing a novel and make these actually-existing people, including the actually-existing person with my name, into a believable person on the page. And that requires distance. That requires not being right up against the events you're talking about.
Salman RushdieNot even the visionary or mystical experience ever lasts very long. It is for art to capture that experience, to offer it to, in the case of literature, its readers; to be, for a secular, materialist culture, some sort of replacement for what the love of god offers in the world of faith.
Salman RushdieBoth John F. Kennedy and Nelson Mandela use the same three-word phrase which in my mind says it all, which is โFreedom is indivisible. You canโt slice it up, otherwise it ceases to be freedom. You can dislike Charlie Hebdo โฆ but the fact that you dislike them has nothing to do with their right to speak.
Salman Rushdie