Be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours.

One minute you've got a lucky star watching over you and the next instant it's done a bunk.

Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms.

We crave permission openly to become our secret selves.

My father decided that he was such a admirer of Ibn Rushd's philosophy, thinking that he changed the family name to Rushdie. I realized why my father was so interested in him, because he was really an incredibly modernizing voice inside our Islamic culture.

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

War used to be something you could stand on the nearby hill and watch. Now we have total war; everybody's in it. We have total economics as well. Everything affects everybody. The Malaysian currency shakes, and people around the world are seriously affected.