What had been (at the beginning) no bigger than a full stop had expanded into a comma, a word, a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter; now it was bursting into more complex developments, becoming, one might say, a book - perhaps an encylopaedia - even a whole language.
Interpretation
The quote illustrates the idea of growth and evolution of thoughts and ideas over time.
In this quote, Salman Rushdie reflects on the process of how small ideas can develop into vast and complex constructs. Starting from something as simple as a full stop, the narrative progresses through various stages of expansion, ultimately suggesting that thoughts can evolve into comprehensive and intricate systems of knowledge, akin to languages or encyclopedias, which denotes the power of language and expression in human experience.
In practice
In a speech about innovation, one might say, 'As Salman Rushdie noted, what starts as a small idea can evolve into something monumental.'
I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
faith without doubt is addiction
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when their tormentors suffer.
It is not larger, cleaner cages that justice demands...but empty cages; not traditional animal agriculture but a complete end to all commerce in the flesh of dead animals; not more humane hunting and trapping, but the total eradication of these barbarous practices.
One time he was asked if he believed in an afterlife. After a moment's hesitation he said no, that he thought there was only "some kind of velvety cool blackness," adding then: "Of course, I admit I may be wrong. It is conceivable that I might well be reborn as a Chinese coolie. In such case I should lodge a protest."
Never increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.
The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite.
In fighting terror, you cannot let it interfere with the normal life of civilians in Israel.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.