Top 287 Quotes by Salman Rushdie

When 'Midnight's Children' came out, people in the West tended to respond to the fantasy elements in the novel, to praise it in those terms. In India, people read it like a history book.

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.

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.

American literature has always been immigrant.

Hyperrealism can create an atmosphere of surrealism because nobody sees the world in such detail.

Normally when I read, I don't like music playing.

I don't like books that seem to want to teach me things. Which is not to say that one doesn't learn from books - but you do your own learning in your own way.

The world is always terrible.

Friendships are the family we make - not the one we inherit. I've always been someone to whom friendship, elective affinities, is as important as family.

The only way to find out why someone decides to engage in armed combat is to look at their individual personality.