Censorship is the thing that stops you doing what you want to do, and what writers want to talk about is what they do, not what stops them doing it.
Interpretation
Censorship restricts creativity and expression, preventing writers from discussing important topics freely.
In this quote, Salman Rushdie expresses the viewpoint that censorship acts as a barrier to creativity and personal expression for writers. Instead of allowing them to explore and discuss their thoughts and ideas openly, censorship limits their ability to communicate, ultimately hindering the artistic and intellectual discourse that is vital for society.
In practice
A speaker at a literary event discussing the impact of censorship on creativity.
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.
I paint the way someone bites his fingernails; for me, painting is a bad habit because I don't know nor can I do anything else.
The way to write a thriller is to ask a question at the beginning, and answer it at the end.
I believe that as a writer and a director, you're only providing the skeleton of a character, and you're hiring actors to fill it out.
Far from being dead, physical media has years of life left and must be preserved because there is no better alternative.
I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.
There's no reason music should be difficult for an audience to understand.
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