The enemy for the fanatic is pleasure, which makes it extremely important to continue to indulge in pleasure. Dance madly. That is how you get rid of terrorism.
From Salman Rushdie
When people do the cowardly thing, it's not about respect, it's about fear.
The whole story of migration and what that has done in interconnecting the planet is obviously something I've written about a lot.
I don't know what to say about literary critics. I think it's probably best to say nothing.
Doris Lessing really doesn't care what the critics say. In fact, she orders her publishers not to send her the reviews and gets cross with them if they do because she doesn't want that in her head. She's going where she's going, and that's where she wants to go.
There are two things in Indian history - one is the incredible optimism and potential of the place, and the other is the betrayal of that potential - for example, corruption. Those two strands intertwine through the whole of Indian history, and maybe not just Indian history.
The way you write a screenplay is that you close your eyes and run the movie in your head and then you write it down.
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.
I was very happy in Bombay. I was good at school. There was no reason to change anything. I suppose it must have been some spirit of adventure, of wanting to see the world.
Sometimes when you finish a book, you don't know quite what you've got.
15 perspectives
11 perspectives
10 perspectives
8 perspectives
3 perspectives
2 perspectives