Salman Rushdie Quotes

I try to understand people who do violence. I try to understand what they are feeling and experiencing.

My theory was that what I had to do was make a study of human behavior.

The tendency to aggression is an innate, independent, instinctual disposition in man... it constitutes the powerful obstacle to culture.

There's no way to escape the fact that we've grown up in a violent culture, we just can't get away from it, it's part of our heritage. I think part of it is that we've always felt somewhat helpless in the face of this vast continent. Helplessness is answered in many ways, but one of them is violence.

My biggest job really is to figure other people out. I need to understand what makes a person tick.

We need to do something about the culture of violence.

We can and must turn this around. If you're going to kill someone just pull the trigger.

I don't know how people box for a living. I don't know how they can just hurt people for a living and be OK with it.

I'm so fascinated with the study of people and why they are the way they are. That's my research and my archaeology, if you will, when I get a role. I'm so excited to attack a part from every angle of what makes a person a person.

Ideologies aren't all that important. What's important is psychology.

The thing that I love is human behavior - why people do what they do, who they are, and the choices that they make - and that has to always be plot driven.

Ideology has very little to do with 'consciousness' - it is profoundly unconscious.

My father taught me how to fight when I was 5.

I think a lot of people are curious about what makes people do what they do, and I guess my curiosity isn't hidden in any way.

Fighting is not a man's thing, it is a human thing.

It is society which, fashioning us in its image, fills us with religious, political, and moral beliefs that control our actions.

There's something about trying to figure out why someone is doing something that on the outside is horrible - what drives them to do that? What could drive any human being to that kind of behaviour?

You can think you know somebody. But when they're trying to punch you in the face, you really know somebody. You learn their tendencies.

I'm interested in character and people and motivations and things like that.

The premise for me has always been that it's vulnerable people who do violent things. And the more vulnerable they feel, often, the more violent they are. But I think, you know, that's an idea that comes from history, from classical theater, for me.

As human beings, we all have reasons for our behavior. There may be people who have certain physiological issues that dictate why they make certain choices. On the whole, though, I think we're dictated by our structure, our past, our environment, our culture. So once you understand the patterns that shape a person, how can you not find sympathy?

I've seen a lot of political violence in my life. I know what it looks like. I know what it smells like. I know what motivates young men to do it. I've talked to them about it. I know what victims feel like, you know? I know the abominable effect it has on politics. I know how intractable it is.

I don't mind knife fights. I just want the knives to come to the front.

I saw my brother have an altercation one time. He hit a guy with a left hook to the body and a right hand to the chin. He not only knocked the guy out, but out of wind. That stuck with me. It scared me.

My experience is that aggression is a universal trait in human beings - girls feel it in any sort of environment, same-sex or co-ed.