The gamble of literature is that I make the best work I can; the most truthful, the most representative of how I see things. I try and do that and then I put it out there and say to you, "What do you think?" I hope that you think well of it, obviously.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the risk and hope inherent in the creative process of writing.
In this quote, Salman Rushdie articulates the inherent gamble involved in creating literature: the writer invests effort into crafting their best and most authentic work while simultaneously releasing it to the world, seeking validation and connection with the audience. This act of sharing one's truth is filled with vulnerability, as the writer hopes for positive reception and meaningful engagement from others.
In practice
In a literary workshop to encourage sharing original works.
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.
The pointes for girls, I always say, have to be like an elephant's trunk; strong and yet flexible and soft.
The job of the writer is to take a close and uncomfortable look at the world they inhabit, the world we all inhabit, and the job of the novel is to make the corpse stink.
The most despairing songs are the most beautiful, and I know some immortal ones that are pure tears.
We may feel bitterly how little our poems can do in the face of seemingly out-of-control technological power and seemingly limitless corporate greed, yet it has always been true that poetry can break isolation, show us to ourselves when we are outlawed or made invisible, remind us of beauty where no beauty seems possible, remind us of kinship where all is represented as separation.
Whatever colors you have in your mind, I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine.
I think all songs should have weather in them. Names of towns and streets, and they should have a couple of sailors. I think those are just song prerequisites.
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