'The Satanic Verses' was denied the ordinary life of a novel. It became something smaller and uglier: an insult.

There are things you break that can't be put back together again. And Kashmir may be one of them.

Rock and roll music - the music of freedom frightens people and unleashes all manner of conservative defense mechanisms.

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.

One of the extraordinary things about human events is that the unthinkable becomes thinkable.

Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.

‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.

In the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips.

Language upon a silvered tongue affords enchantment enough.

The whole story of migration and what that has done in interconnecting the planet is obviously something I've written about a lot.

faith without doubt is addiction

When you're the most happening person at the party, it's time to leave

Was he leaving home, or going home?

She's still clinging to the side of her mountain, just like I'm still wandering lost in my battlefield.

Only the brave know how to forgive... a coward never forgave it is not in his nature.

Teaching is an instinctual art, mindful of potential, craving of realizations, a pausing, seamless process.

Once upon a time, I thought that politics was the name we gave to our higher instincts. That was before Margaret Thatcher, who came to power when I was 11 years old.

Suffering attracts fixers the way road-kills attract vultures.

I try not to bore my readers.

I wanted to write a new fable and see how many rules you could break.

I don't do evening business dinners and I don't do weekends.