'The Satanic Verses' was denied the ordinary life of a novel. It became something smaller and uglier: an insult.

Ideas are interesting to me, and religions are a place where ideas have been very subtly embodied for thousands of years. All literature started as sacred literature.

There needs to be a thorough examination, by Muslims everywhere, of why it is that the faith they love breeds so many violent mutant strains.

If by some bizarre chance there turns out to be a god [...], I'm willing to bet he's an atheist too.

Rohinton Mistry's celebrated novel 'Such a Long Journey' was pulled off the syllabus of Mumbai University because local extremists objected to its content.

The accidents of my life have given me the ability to make stories in which different parts of the world are brought together, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes both - usually both. The difficulty in these stories is that if you write about everywhere you can end up writing about nowhere.

perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque.