Satanic Verses Quotes

When I was writing 'The Satanic Verses,' if you had asked me about the phenomenon that we all now know as radical Islam, I wouldn't have had much to say. As recently as the mid-1980s, it didn't seem to be a big deal.

'The Satanic Verses' was denied the ordinary life of a novel. It became something smaller and uglier: an insult.

We've seen violent responses to 'Satanic Verses.' We've seen violent responses to the cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in an evil way.

Satanic Verses is a despicable book that could not have been written by a person who wished to behave decently and responsibly.

So when I studied history at Cambridge, I did a special subject in that, exactly that. And then actually that - while I was studying it was where I came across the so-called incident of the satanic verses.

We cannot accept that democratic freedoms need to be abrogated to protect Islam.

Well, we're still in the middle of it. And it doesn't show any sign of going away. And these attacks that were - that seemed so odd at the time, with "Satanic Verses," because we didn't have any context for this. You know, where did that come from? It seemed to come out of nowhere.

However offensive that book may be, inciting murder and offering rewards for its perpetration are deeply offensive to the norms of civilized behavior.

The author of the Satanic Verses book, which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran, and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death. I ask all Muslims to execute them wherever they find them.

I've read The Satanic Verses and I thought it a nasty, sneering, free-thinking book... I can understand why the book is offensive and it didn't seem to me to be anything but offensive when I read it.