Salman Rushdie Quotes

People are looking for certainty. The more complex the world becomes, the more people look for people to give them certainty and tell them what to do. During the past few years of actively thinking about this, there is one thing that I have accepted: certainty is not out there. There is not one strategy to follow, and that's OK.

… a world without certainty can be richer, in all senses of the word, than a world with false convictions.

Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.

I would never feel confident enough to express my views and opinions as the right ones because I just don't think that's possible. There are so many sides to everything that nobody is right or wrong.

I wouldn't like to live in a world where everything's as cut-and-dried as most people think it is

Being ambivalent doesn't mean that you're a relevatist, that anything goes; it just means that you show the complexity of life. Life is always complex.

The minute one utters a certainty, the opposite comes to mind.

The more ambivalent you are and the more uncertain you are, then you can get something that you cannot anticipate.

I used to think there was a scientific way to do things. Like a proper way to answer a question or that kind of stuff. It's like, there's not! There's not a method, there's not a science to it.

I am certain there is too much certainty in the world.

I'm not such a big fan of having a linear answer to things.

I'm kind of a sloppy feminist. Any ideology makes me a little nervous because there's some point where it doesn't allow for the complexity of things.

If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?'

If we have as a clear certainty with which to plan, total uncertainty, then that would be helpful.

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

We live in the postmodern world, where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain.

I'm not ideological. I think sometimes when people are ideological, the world's a lot easier. Because it falls into either right or wrong, or black or white, or whatever. To me, I'm still trying to figure out a lot of things.

Being an agnostic means all things are possible, even God, even the Holy Trinity. This world is so strange that anything may happen, or may not happen. Being an agnostic makes me live in a larger, a more fantastic kind of world, almost uncanny. It makes me more tolerant.

I protest against any absolute conclusion.

It is not that there are no certainties, it is that it is an absolute certainty that there are no certainties.

What I learned is that it's arrogant to be certain of anything. The world is a complex place and only idiots or assholes think they know it all.

One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.

It was best to believe in all possibilities...there were more mysteries in the world than a man could ever hope to understand.

I think that certainty is a closed door, It's the end of the conversation. Doubt is an open door.

There are two ways you encounter things in the world that are different. One is everything that comes in reinforces what you already believe and everything that you know. The other thing is that you stay flexible enough or curious enough and maybe unsure of yourself enough, or may be you are more sure of yourself - I don't know which it is - that the new things that come in keep reforming your world view.