Salman Rushdie — "I think the job of a writer is to be a witness, to bear witness to the world."

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

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

"The world is full of people who are very happy to tell you what you should write and how you should write it. And if you listen to them, you’ll never write anything."

"The Satanic Verses is a novel about migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death, London, and Bombay. It is a serious work of literature."

"The greatest danger to freedom is the absence of a joke."