Famous Quotes & Sayings

Salman Rushdie

I have been only the humblest jugglers-with-facts; and that, in a country where the truth is what it is instructed to be, reality quite literally ceases to exist, so that everything becomes possible except what we are told is the case; and maybe this was the difference between my Indian childhood and Pakistani adolescence--that in the first I was beset by an infinity of alternative realities, while in the second I was adrift, disoriented, amid an equally infinite number of falsenesses, unrealities and lies.

Salman Rushdie

It may be argued that the past is a country from which we have all emigrated, that its loss is part of our common humanity.

Salman Rushdie

What happened in Pakistan was that people were told: You're all Muslim, so now you're a country. As we saw in 1971 with the Bangladesh secession, the answer to that was: 'Oh no, we're not.'

Salman Rushdie

If you live in free countries, you don't have to spend all your life arguing about freedom because it is all around you. It seems redundant to make a lot of noise about something when, in fact, there it is. But if someone tries to remove it, it becomes important for you to formulate your own defenses of it.

Salman Rushdie

If you look at Indian movies, every time they wanted an exotic locale, they would have a dance number in Kashmir. Kashmir was India's fairyland. Indians went there because in a hot country you go to a cold place. People would be entranced by the sight of snow.

Salman Rushdie

Pakistan is alarmed by the rising Indian influence in Afghanistan, and fears that an Afghanistan cleansed of the Taliban would be an Indian client state, thus sandwiching Pakistan between two hostile countries. The paranoia of Pakistan about India's supposed dark machinations should never be underestimated.

Salman Rushdie

Every Day Is for the Thief, by turns funny, mournful, and acerbic, offers a portrait of Nigeria in which anger, perhaps the most natural response to the often lamentable state of affairs there, is somehow muted and deflected by the author's deep engagement with the country: a profoundly disenchanted love. Teju Cole is among the most gifted writers of his generation.

Salman Rushdie

In Europe, the Enlightenment of the 18th century was seen as a battle against the desire of the Church to limit intellectual freedom, a battle against the Inquisition, a battle against religious censorship. And the victory of the Enlightenment in Europe was seen as pushing religion away from the center of power. In America, at the same time, the Enlightenment meant coming to a country where people were not going to persecute you by reason of your religion. So it meant a liberation into religion. In Europe, it was liberation out of religion.

Salman Rushdie

If Turkey wants to join Europe, it will have to become a European country, and that might take a long time.

Salman Rushdie

In the real world, immeasurable hurt is caused by terrorists based in Pakistan who attack countries like India.

Salman Rushdie

Certainly, poverty and economic decline have a lot to do with the so-called rage of Islam. You've got all these young men in countries which are economically in bad shape. The idea that they might be able to make a good living and get married and have a family, a decent life, seems very remote to a lot of people in a lot of the world.

Salman Rushdie

Two things form the bedrock of any open society - freedom of expression and rule of law. If you don't have those things, you don't have a free country.

Rudolfo Anaya

There are many gods . . . gods of beauty and magic, gods of the garden, gods in our own backyards, but we go off to foreign countries to find new ones, we reach to the stars to find new ones--. . . . The god of the church is a jealous god; he cannot live in peace with other gods.

Wesley Snipes

We're conditioned in this country to believe that if there's a problem, the black man is usually the culprit.

Wesley Snipes

I think that all of us, as Americans, are due due process and have a right to a fair trial, and have a right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. I think that is the American way and it's the foundation upon which this country was built.

Whitney Houston

I've never felt like this in any other country. I feel at home, I feel wonderful

Wendy Kopp

As a country [USA], we can attract more talented people to teaching by raising awareness of educational inequity and getting the public to understand from individual classrooms, schools, and cities that this is an issue that can be solved.

Wendy Kopp

Education is the most powerful tool countries have for boosting economic growth, increasing prosperity and forging more just, peaceful and equitable societies. Where educational deprivation exists, it breeds conflict and enables repression.

Wanda Jackson

On that show, I did country and some rock, too, whatever record I had out at the time, I'd sing that.

Ward Churchill

When you kill 500,000 children in order to impose your will on other countries, then you shouldn't be surprised when somebody responds in kind.

Ward Churchill

Americans ... have wrought a country that has after more than two centuries yet to evidence a single year during which it was not making war upon someone, somewhere, for some reason.

Wanda Sykes

I think Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker but he was just so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight ... Rush Limbaugh - I hope the country fails. I hope his kidneys fail, how about that? He needs a waterboarding, that's what he needs.

Wangari Maathai

It's a matter of life and death for this country. The Kenyan forests are facing extinction and it is a man-made problem.

Wangari Maathai

There's a general culture in this country to cut all the trees. It makes me so angry because everyone is cutting and no one is planting.

W. Richard Stevens

I drove across country in my yellow 1970 VW bug (which I drove until 1986) to Los Angeles, having had enough cold weather in 5 years in Ann Arbor, and found a job within a few days.

W. S. Merwin

I think it's good for anybody to learn languages. Americans are particularly limited in that way. Europeans less so... We're beginning to have Spanish move in on English in the states because of all the people coming from Hispanic countries... and we're beginning to learn some Spanish. And I think that's a good thing... Only having one language is very limiting... You get to think that's the way the human race is made; there's only one language worth speaking... Well, this isn't good for English.

W. S. Gilbert

The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this, and every country but his own.

Virginia Graham

England is the only civilised country in the world where it is etiquette to fall on the food like a wolf the moment it is served. Elsewhere it is comme il faut to wait until everybody has helped himself to everything and until everything on everybody's plate is stone cold.

Virgil Goode

Amnesty is the magnet. Other magnets that you mentioned are anchor babies who get benefits in this country and employer deductions for employees, even if they are here illegally, which Mr. King is addressing.

Virgil Goode

We are giving away the country so a few very rich people can get richer.

Virgil Goode

Further, the United States is moving ahead in the development of clean coal technology. There are vast coal reserves in our country, and when it is burned cleanly, coal can provide a resource to supply a large amount of our energy requirements.

Virginia Foxx

Challenging unfairly subsidized products, fighting counterfeit goods and intellectual property theft and holding countries accountable for an unfair currency regime will help American companies remain competitive.

Virginia Foxx

From a parent's right to know what their children are doing, to protecting citizens across the country from the growing threat of gang violence, the House Democrat leadership is simply out to lunch.