You can't have modern states based on ideas which have been out of date for a thousand years.

A man who invents himself needs someone to believe in him... Not only the need to be believed in, but the need to believe in another. You've got it: Love.

Sometimes when you finish a book, you don't know quite what you've got.

One of the problems with defending free speech is you often have to defend people that you find to be outrageous and unpleasant and disgusting.

When you write you in a way write out of what you think of as your best self, the part of you that is lacking in foibles and weaknesses and egotism and vanities and so on. You're just trying to really say something as truthful as you can out of the best that you have in you.

Prophet Mohammed would have no objection to The Satanic Verses.

Perhaps because my relationship with my father went through such a long, bumpy time, it's been very important for me to work to try to keep lines of communication open between my sons and myself to try to avoid my father's mistakes. At least if you're making mistakes, make different mistakes.