You can find shame in every house, burning in an ashtray, hanging framed upon a wall, covering a bed. But nobody notices it any more.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that shame exists in everyday life but often goes unnoticed by people.
Salman Rushdie's quote reflects on the pervasive nature of shame in human existence. It points out that shame is not only personal but also woven into the fabric of our homes and lives, manifesting in various forms, yet society has become desensitized to its presence. This sentiment highlights the need for greater awareness and acknowledgment of the emotions we often ignore or overlook.
In practice
This quote can be used during a discussion about mental health to emphasize the commonality of shame.
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.
Only times and places, only names and ghosts.
You didn't have to read 'Playboy,' visit the mansion, wear pajamas, or even be straight: The effects of its ideas about women on the American psyche were totalizing. Women were inferior to men because, for 'Playboy,' they were scenery - pretty, passive, usually white, often blonde, there.
Every man's death is standing in for every other. And since death comes to all there is no way to abate the fear of it except to love the man who stands for us.
That a thing is peculiar; is no argument for its being blamable; since the most criminal actions are to a being like man not more unnatural than most of the virtues.
The world does not yield to changing. By its very nature it is painful and transient. See it as it is and divest yourself of all desire and fear. When the world does not hold and bind you, it becomes an abode of joy and beauty. You can be happy in the world only when you are free of it.
A violet in the youth of primy nature, Forward, not permanent--sweet, not lasting; The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more.
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