Salman Rushdie Quotes on Books (8 Quotes)

The real risks for any artist are taken. . . in pushing the work to the limits of what is possible, in the attempt to increase the sum of what it is possible to think. Books become good when they go to this edge and risk falling over it. . .

I have a deep feeling for Kashmir, and I just had to write this book, ... But it's very hard to write about real events. It becomes unbearable. The challenge in writing this book was how do you write about these things bearably without sweetening the pill

It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.

Both are responsible. But I know when I write a book it's my name on the book, so I stand or fall by what I sign. And so must she.

One of the strange things that happens when you publish a book is that you begin ... to see what resonances it has for the readers, ... Sometimes you begin to understand your book a bit more.

I think it's a stupid way to read a book, ... to say that because something happens to one person the author is trying to suggest that all people are like this. The novel is the art of the particular. And I'm talking about a particular person whose development from innocence to guilt, if you like, is his own particular narrative arc. The point is to make that coherent - not to read the book as some kind of simple allegory, but to read it as a story about a person.

A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.

Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one.