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.
Nature without learning is like a blind man; learning without Nature, like a maimed one; practice without both, incomplete. As in agriculture a good soil is first sought for, then a skilful husbandman, and then good seed; in the same way nature corresponds to the soil, the teacher to the husbandman, precepts and instruction to the seed.
If I had a choice of educating my daughters or my sons because of opportunity constraints, I would choose to educate my daughters.
God be thanked for books; they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages.
For pity's sake, if you don't take a shine to a novel, there are loads more in the world; read something else. Continue suffering, and it's not the author's fault. It's yours.
BE A STUDENT BY STAYING OPEN AND WILLING TO LEARN FROM EVERYONE AND ANYONE.
Critical thinking is not something you do once with an issue and then drop it. It requires that we update our knowledge as new information comes in. Time spent evaluating claims is not just time well spent. It should be considered part of an implicit bargain we've all made.
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