One of the reasons my name is Rushdie is that my father was an admirer of Ibn Rush’d, the 12th century Arab philosopher known as Averroes in the West. In his time, he was making the non-literalist case for interpreting the Koran.
One of the things I’ve learnt is not to depend on there being a woman in your life to make it work. I love my work, I love my children, I’ve got wonderful friends, you know, I have a nice life.
Out-of-step intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and the deceased Edward Said have often been dismissed as crazy extremists, ‘anti-American,’ and in Mr. Said’s case even, absurdly, as apologists for Palestinian ‘terrorism.’
People must be protected from prejudice against their person. But people cannot be protected from prejudice against their ideas – because otherwise we’re all done.
Many of us didn’t believe in the image of bin Laden as a wandering Old Man of the Mountains, living on plants and insects in an inhospitable cave somewhere on the porous Pakistan-Afghan border.
I do think of Bombay as my hometown. Those are the streets I walked when I was learning to walk. And it’s the place that my imagination has returned to more than anywhere else.
I don’t feel American. I do feel like a New Yorker. I think there’s a real distinction there. A city allows you to become a citizen even when you’re not a national.
If you take a look at history, you will find that the understanding of what is good and evil has always existed before the individual religions. The religions were only invented by people afterwards, in order to express this idea.
Actually, I don’t even like parties. I would much prefer a room with four friends who sit around and have dinner. I detest nightclubs. And I don’t like places where the noise is so loud you can’t talk to people.
Anyone who has had the experience of going through American security checks knows the purpose of these checks is not to make you safer; it’s just to annoy you.
Rohinton Mistry’s celebrated novel ‘Such a Long Journey’ was pulled off the syllabus of Mumbai University because local extremists objected to its content.
I’ve never had very high regard for therapists. I owe my health, my mental survival, to my friends and loved ones.
All my adult life, if I didn’t have several hours a day to sit in a room by myself, I would get antsy and irritable.
American literature has always been immigrant.
Anyone who reads my work will see that there are often difficult relationships between fathers and sons.
England in a way is lucky. It’s an island, so the frontiers are given by the sea.
Even when things are at their worst, there’s a little voice in your head saying, ‘Good story!’
Everybody loves ‘The Wire,’ and I think it’s okay, but in the end it’s just a police series.
Free societies are societies in motion, and with motion comes friction.
Hyperrealism can create an atmosphere of surrealism because nobody sees the world in such detail.