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

Sometimes I think that when people become famous, there's a public perception that they are not human beings any more. They don't have feelings; they don't get hurt; you can act and say as you like about them.

In today's US, it's possible for almost anyone - women, gays, African-Americans, Jews - to run for, and be elected to, high office.

I always thought the front line was the bookstores. And bookstores around America, around the world did astonishingly well. They held the line. They didn't chicken out. You know, they defended the book. They kept it in the front of the store.

We all owe death a life.

I think if we wish to live in any kind of a moral universe, we must hold the perpetrators of violence responsible for the violence they perpetrate. It's very simple. The criminal is responsible for the crime.

American literature has always been immigrant.