Salman Rushdie Quotes

Whoever says he is starting from a given in nature may be right, and so is he who says he is starting from nothing!

Maybe I don't believe things myself, as well. Truth is such a transient thing.

Well, I believe in the idea of 'normal' in the way that I believe in the idea of logic. Or the idea of character. All of these ethical constructs are just that: constructs.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

Human nature is not black and white but black and grey.

There may not be one Truth - there may be several truths - but saying that is not to say that reality doesn't exist.

Do what you will, this world's a fiction and is made up of contradiction.

What is the truth? Is it what you experience? Is it what I experience? Or is there some objective truth in between?

Liberation from meaning leaves us skeptical of truth itself, comfortable only to acknowledge 'your truth' and 'my truth,' confident only in the reality of subjective feeling rather than objective fact.

What, then is truth?... Truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are.

Language can't describe reality. Literature has no stable reference, no real meaning. Each reader's interpretation is equally valid, more important than the author's intention. In fact, nothing in life has meaning. Reality is subjective. Values and truths are subjective. Life itself is a kind of illusion. Blah, blah, blah, let's have another scotch.

Since no one can ever know for certain whether or not his own view of life is the correct one, it is absolutely impossible for him to know if someone else's is the wrong one.

Everything is true, and nothing is true!

Normal is all relative.

To a monster the norm must seem monstrous, since everyone is normal to himself.

Everything is true and not true about everything. That’s one thing I’ve learned.

Man is the measure of all things, of the reality of those which are, and of the unreality of those which are not.

There is no such thing as an absolute truth to be discovered.

A lie was something that hadn't happened but might just as well have.

Concerning [postmodern] ideas, let us not mince words. The ideas are profoundly dangerous. They subvert our civilization by denying that truth is found by conscientious attempts accurately to portray a reality that exists independently of our perception or attitudes or other attributes such as race, ethnicity, sex or class.

But there is one thing you must remember, if you forget all else. There is no good or evil, save in the way you see the world. There is no dark or light save in your own vision. All changes in the blink of an eyelid; yet all remains the same.

Today there seems to be only one absolute thing: relativism.

If we base our belief systems on the humble assumption that the complexities of the world are ontologically beyond our understanding, then maybe our belief systems will make more sense and end up causing less suffering.

Subjectivity is objective.

Truth and dreams are always getting muddled.