If there is a choice between absolute safety and freedom, then freedom must always prevail.

When I was writing The Satanic Verses, if you had asked me about the phenomenon that we all now know as radical Islam, I wouldn't have had much to say. As recently as the mid-1980s, it didn't seem to be a big deal.

Liberate yourself, because no one else is going to liberate you

The answer to religion is not no religion, but another way of thinking of it. Another way of being in it.

The only position when violence is threatened in response to a novel or a cartoon or a crappy YouTube video is a no-surrender position. This is how we live. We live in a country in which we have these rights, and we're not going to give them up. Full stop. The end.

Without water we are nothing", the traveler thought. "Even an emperor, denied water, would swiftly turn to dust. Water is the real monarch and we are all its slaves.

If somebody's trying to shut you up, sing louder, and if possible, better.