# Salman Rushdie - Quotes: 27 - Author page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie ## Books - [Haroun and the Sea of Stories](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/haroun-and-the-sea-of-stories.md) — 3 quotes - [Knife](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/knife.md) — 2 quotes - [Midnight's Children](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/midnights-children.md) — 11 quotes - [The Ground Beneath Her Feet](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/the-ground-beneath-her-feet.md) — 9 quotes - [The Satanic Verses](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/the-satanic-verses.md) — 2 quotes ## Recently added quotes > Happy ending must come at the end of something. If they happen in the middle of the story or adventure, or the like, all they do is cheer things up for a while. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/haroun-and-the-sea-of-stories/happy-ending-must.md) > Now the Tale of the Moody Land was one of Rashid Khalifa's best-loved stories. It was the story of a magical country that changed constantly, according to the moods of its inhabitants. In the Moody Land, the sun would shine all night if there were enough joyful people around, and it would go on shining until the endless sunshine got on their nerves; then an irritable night would fall, a night full of mutterings and discontent, in which the air felt too thick to breathe. And when people got angry the ground would shake; and when people were muddled or uncertain about things the Moody Land got confused as well - the outlines of its buildings and lamp-posts and motor-cars got smudgy, like paintings whose colours had run, and at such times it could be difficult to make out where one thing ended and another began... (Salman Rushdie) [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/haroun-and-the-sea-of-stories/now-the-tale.md) > Need's a funny fish; it makes people untruthful. They all suffer from it, but they won't always admit. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/haroun-and-the-sea-of-stories/needs-a-funny.md) > "When you have no picture of the world, you don't know how to make choices -- material, inconsequential or moral. You don't know which way is up, or if you're coming or going, or how many beans make five." [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/the-ground-beneath-her-feet/when-you-have.md) > "Between the self and the other, between the visionary and the psychopath, between the lover and his love, between the overworld and the underworld, falls the shadow." [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/the-ground-beneath-her-feet/between-the-self.md) > "We have been here before.This is a helicopter, hovering just above the broken ground. This is the woman I love, calling to me through the open door. I'm going, then. And I'm shouting back, I can't go. What? Go. Fuck you. What? Goodbye, Hope.And this is what people are saying when they aren't saying what they mean.I'm going, then. (Come with me, please, I need you, I can't believe you won't come with me.) I can't go. (My darling, I want never to let you out of my sight again, but goddamn it, you kick me around, you know that?, do you want the see the bruises?, and just this once I'm not putting you first. I'll be there soon enough, this time you can wait for me. If you want me, you'll wait. That's right, a test. Yeah. Maybe it really is.) What? (You bastard?, you think you can hold out on me? Oh Jesus, Rai, don't play games, not now, not today.) Go. (Okay, no games. I love you forever and beyond. But this is my work. I'll be there sooner than blinking. Go. I'm right behind you. I love you. Go.)Fuck you (I never wanted you to come to Mexico in the first place fuck you but you came anyway fuck you I guess that proves something yeah but I hurt you anyway I was mad I was wrong fuck you and then you helped me fuck you that really churned me up fuck you so I trusted you I really trusted you fuck you then the earth moved and you abandoned me fuck you you took your photographs I could have been dying I could have been broken and dying but you had your work to do fuck you and now you won't come with me fuck you now when I finally worked out that I need you fuck you I want you fuck you maybe I love you I do love you fuck you Rai I love you fuck you. I do.)What? (What???)Goodbye, Hope. (Goodbye for a moment, you bastard, but after this I'm never letting you out of my sight. The next time I see you will be the beginning of the rest of our lives.)Every night for years, I replayed that shouted dialogue in my head, and now I think this may be what it means. Maybe Goodbye really was the never-to-be-completed beginning of Hello. I hope so, I hope so. Even though it's a meaning that makes the loss weigh more heavily and the pain harder to bear." [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/the-ground-beneath-her-feet/we-have-been.md) > It had been thirty-three and a half years since the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s notorious death order against me and all those involved in the publication of The Satanic Verses, and during those years, I confess, I had sometimes imagined my assassin rising up in some public forum or other and coming for me in just this way. So my first thought when I saw this murderous shape rushing toward me was: So it’s you. Here you are. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/knife/it-had-been.md) > "The only people who see the whole picture are the ones who step out of the frame." [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/the-ground-beneath-her-feet/the-only-people.md) > Art is not a luxury. It stands at the essence of our humanity, and it asks for no special protection except the right to exist. > > It accepts argument, criticism, even rejection. It does not accept violence. > > And in the end, it outlasts those who oppress it. The poet Ovid was exiled by Augustus Caesar, but the poetry of Ovid has outlasted the Roman Empire. The poet Mandelstam's life was ruined by Joseph Stalin, but his poetry has outlasted the Soviet Union. The poet Lorca was murdered by the thugs of General Franco, but his art has outlasted the fascism of the Falange. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/knife/art-is-not.md) > "Falling in love with Vina, I knew I was stepping out of my league. Nevertheless, I took the step and did not fall on my face. This is human heroism. Of this, as of little else, I am proud. Male love is a kind of self-assessment. We allow ourselves to love only those women whom we feel we have a right to pay court, to whom we dare aspire." [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/the-ground-beneath-her-feet/falling-in-love.md) > "Earthquakes, scientists say, are common phenomena. Globally speaking there are around fifteen thousand tremors a decade. Stability is what's rare. The abnormal, the extreme, the operatic, the unnatural: these rule. There is no such thing as normal life. Yet the everyday is what we need, it's the house we build to defend us against the big bad wolf of change. If, finally, the wolf is reality, the house is our best defense against the storm: call it civilization. We build our walls of straw or brick not only against the vulpine instability of the times but against our own predatory natures too; against the wolf within." [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/the-ground-beneath-her-feet/earthquakes-scientists-say.md) > "Death is more than love or is it. Art is more than love or is it. Love is more than death and art, or not. This is the subject. This is the subject. This is it." [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/salman-rushdie/the-ground-beneath-her-feet/death-is-more.md)