Salman Rushdie Quotes

Must a name mean something?" Alice asked doubtfully. Of course it must," Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh; "my name means the shape I am - and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost.

What is there in a name? It is merely an empty basket, until you put something into it.

A name means a lot just by itself.

To define a thing is to substitute the definition for the thing itself.

There is a great deal in a name. It often signifies much, and may involve a great principle.

Words mean more than we mean to express when we use them: so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer meant.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

And so with all things: names were vital and important.

Words are things, but things which mean. We cannot do away with meaning without doing away with signs, that is, with language itself. Moreover, we would have to do away with the universe. All the things man touches are impregnated with meaning.

'Gaydamak' in Turkish means a fighter. That's me.

Words are a strange thing. You once saw an animal and decided it's a 'cat.' But cat is a sound. This cat has nothing to do with the animal. But I have decided it's a cat. So a cat it is.

I'm starting to believe in the power of a name. Because it can't be a mistake if I just call it 'change.'

Whether the person should then be called "an intellectual" seems to reduce the issue to a question of terminology.

The word devil is very beautiful, if you read it backwards it becomes lived.

A word is no light matter. Words have with truth been called fossil poetry, each, that is, a symbol of a creative thought.

When she came to write her story, she would wonder when the books and the words started to mean not just something, but everything.

There was no "me" in Alchemy. Well, phonetically there was, but that wasn't the point.

I used to have only one name; it used to mean something.

Ma vie est une énigme dont ton nom est le mot. (My life is an enigma, of which your name is the word.)

Individual words, sounds, squiggles on paper with no meanings other than those with which our imagination can clothe them.

Names are the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

There are words and words and none mean anything. And then one sentence means everything.

Names govern the world.

It's a funny thing about names, how they become a part of someone.