In any authoritarian society, the possessor of power dictates, and if you try and step outside, he will … - Salman Rushdie

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There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.

Salman Rushdie

In any authoritarian society, the possessor of power dictates, and if you try and step outside, he will come after you. This is equally true of Sovietism, of China and of Iran, and in our time it has happened a lot in Islam. The point is that it's worse when the authoritarianism is supported by something supernatural.

Authoritarian, Iran, Islam, Supported, Trying, Worse

Same Author Quotes

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

Courage, Communication, Novelists, Ability, Speak

Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, to rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts.

Joke, Powerless, Retell, Stories, Storytelling, Thinking

The only people who see the whole picture,' he murmured, 'are the ones who step out of the frame.

Ones, People, Steps, Whole

Perhaps the story you finish is never the one you begin.

Stories, Story, Begin, Finish, Perhaps

I reluctantly concluded that there was no way for me to help bring into being the Muslim culture I'd dreamed of, the progressive, irreverent, skeptical, argumentative, playful and unafraid culture which is what I've always understood as freedom. . . . Actually Existing Islam. . . which makes literalism a weapon and redescription a crime, will never let the likes of me in.

Islam, Culture, Weapons, Concluded, Skeptical, Existing