I am not in the business of suppressing books.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of freedom of expression and the value of literature.
Salman Rushdie's quote highlights that he does not believe in limiting access to literature or any form of written expression, indicating a strong commitment to the principles of free speech and the open dissemination of ideas. It speaks to the belief that literature serves as a vehicle for critical thinking and cultural exchange, rather than a tool for censorship.
In practice
In a speech at a literary festival promoting freedom of expression.
I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
faith without doubt is addiction
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
In my own view, some advice about what should be known, about what technical education should be acquired, about the intense motivation needed to succeed, and about the carelessness and inclination toward bias that must be avoided is far more useful than all the rules and warnings of theoretical logic.
Reading was like a drug, a dope. The novels created moods in which I lived for days.
I want to get into the educational DNA of American culture. I want 10 percent of the common culture, more or less, to be black.
When you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.
Grammar is a piano I play by ear.
I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn.
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