1,092 Quotes by Salman Rushdie

I'd rather die fighting over great poets than over gods.

Ich würde lieber im Kampf um große Dichter sterben als in einem Krieg um Götter.

I spoke no Spanish, so I was unable to haggle with the taxi-drivers. 'Benengeli,' I said, and the first cabbie shook his head and walked away, spitting copiously. The second named a number that had no meaning for me. I had come to a place where I did not know the names of things or the motives for men's deeds. The universe was absurd. I could not say 'dog', or 'where?', or 'I am a man'. Besides, my head was thick, like a soup.

...that witchcraft requires no potions, familiar spirits, or magic wands. Language upon a silver tongue affords enchantment enough.

From birds she learned how to sing; from cats she learned a form of dangerous independence.

Mogor had been right. The curse of the human race is not that we are so different from one another, but that we are so alike.

He remembered the old Chinese proverb, sometimes ascribed to Confucius: If you sit by the river for long enough, the body of your enemy will float by.

Now I know what a ghost is. Unfinished business, that's what.

Death and life were just adjacent verandas.