In general, writers shouldn't be killed for what they write, though I can think of exceptions.
Interpretation
Writers should have the freedom to express their thoughts without fear of violent repercussions.
Salman Rushdie's quote emphasizes the importance of freedom of expression for writers, suggesting that, in general, they should not face lethal consequences for their work. However, it also hints at the complexity of this issue, acknowledging that there may be situations where exceptions exist, highlighting the nuanced relationship between art, expression, and societal values.
In practice
In a speech advocating for journalistic freedom, this quote could highlight the necessity of protecting writers.
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.
Art is the perpetual motion of illusion. The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for any one but inspire them?
An ecstasy is a thing that will not go into words; it feels like music.
I spent an hour looking at pots and carpets in the museums the other day, until the desire to describe them became like the desire for the lusts of the flesh.
Whereas money is a means to an end for a filmmaker, to the corporate mind money is the end. Right now, I think independent film is very confused, because there's excess pressure in the marketplace for entertainment to pay off.
I realized that the longing for art, like the longing for love, is a malady that blinds us, and makes us forget the things we already know, obscuring reality.
I am imbued with the notion that a Muse is necessarily a dead woman, inaccessible or absent; that a poetic structure - like the canon, which is only a hole surrounded by steel - can be based only on what one does not have; and that ultimately one can write only to fill a void or at the least to situate, in relation to the most lucid part of ourselves, the place where this incommensurable abyss yawns within us.
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