Salman Rushdie Quotes

The great liberty of the fictional writer is to let the imagination out of the traces and see it gallop off over the horizon.

Fiction is such a world of freedom, it's wonderful. If you want someone to fly, they can fly.

For years, I was watching other people have so much fun playing out their version of authorship, like Louis C.K. and Larry David. As I watched them do their thing, I began to pine for the days when I had a lot less expected of me and, often, a lot more creative freedom. The courage that those guys have is always captivating to me.

You have to take some dramatic license just to make it entertaining sometimes.

The purpose of fiction is not to nail you to the ground as facts do, but to take you to the edge of the cliff and kick you off so you build your wings on the way down.

Truth maybe stranger than fiction, but fiction is truer.

There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen.

When you're an artist, all you're trying to do is self-express.

For me, art is make-believe. It's enchantment. It's a fable. I'm enjoying that and playing with it. Of course it's serious, and art is serious, but I'm not going to rarefy it.

Well, luckily with animation, fantasy is your friend.

I love to create, and to me, the ultimate freedom of expression is a blank canvas or a block of clay to capture whatever emotions your imagination gives it.

When I was a little girl, I loved theater a lot and I was always playing and making my own worlds.

I loved the world of imagination.

I already have legitimacy as a filmmaker and now I'm trying to do stuff that's just fun. Until I find a cool tangible subject again that I want to tackle.

I absolutely adore working in the realms of fantasy.

Writing, film, sculpture, music: it's all make-believe, really.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

Art is more engaging that propaganda.

When you're in elementary school, you get these amazing assignments, like to come up with your own animal, come up with your own city, come up with your own planet, what do the people look like; you're very much encouraged to be as imaginative as possible.

Being an author is fun. It's a great job, because I can stay up as late as I want, and if I feel like taking the day off, I do it. Plus, I get to make up silly stories and draw pictures all day.

What's cool is when you're able to give your audience imagination and you don't have to cage them in like animals.

People ask me if I ever thought of writing a children's book. I say, 'If I had a serious brain injury I might well write a children's book', but otherwise the idea of being conscious of who you're directing the story to is anathema to me, because, in my view, fiction is freedom and any restraints on that are intolerable.

Being a fiction writer makes you someone who works with irresponsibility.

Stories are not explanations of the world we live in. Science does that, and math does that. Our obligation as fiction writers is to enhance the mysteries.

The whole point of film for me is that it's such a joy. It's such a wonder. The possibilities are literally endless in terms of what you can creatively do.