A Quote by Salman Rushdie

Islam doesn't have to mean blind faith. It can mean what it always meant in your family, a culture, a civilization, as open-minded as your grandfather was, as delightedly disputatious as your father was.... Don't let the zealots make Muslim a terrifying word, I urged myself; remember when it meant family.
I can't even tell you what else I imagined. I can only humiliate myself to such a degree; at a certain point it becomes humorous, and this story is not meant to be humorous. This story is meant to winch your ribs open and tamper with your heart. This story is meant to make you realize that your chances of happiness in this world are terribly slim if you lack a fine imagination.
That's something the head scarf, in a symbolic way, is meant to do in Arabic culture: it defines your relationship to your husband and the men of your family differently than your relationship to the average guy on the street you've never met.
Being a slave meant never having the stability of knowing your family would be together as many years as God designed it to be. It meant you could come back from picking cotton in a field to find that your children are gone, your husband's gone, your mother's gone.
Being a slave meant never having the stability of knowing your family would be together as many years as God designed it to be. It meant you could come back from picking cotton in a field to find that your children are gone, your husband's gone, your mother's gone. It meant knowing you are property that could be sold to the highest bidder, of value only to continue to support the plantation economy.
Do you enjoy holidays with your family? I don't mean your mom and dad family, but your uncle and aunt and cousin family? Personally, I do. There are several reasons for this. First, I am very interested and fascinated by how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other. Second, the fights are always the same.
I was born in Quebec City, I've lived there many years before moving to Montreal and then Ottawa. And I mean, Quebec City is a very, you know, closed city if I may say. So it's not easy to be accepted living in Quebec City. So if you're from a different faith, you may be a bit timid in showing your faith. So I mean, you're already from a different country, you're an immigrant and hearing what you hear about Islam, you might not wish to be identified as a Muslim, and you may be very discreet into your faith and going to the mosque.
In Israel, it always meant - and a lot of that is still true - there was only one kind of man you could be, there were no alternatives, no options. If you were from a good family, you were supposed to be a successful soldier at 18 and be strong, and prepared to protect your wife and family, or family and children, and be prepared to die for your country.
We didn't exactly believe your story.' Then --?' 'We believed your two hundred dollars.' 'You mean --' She seemed not to know what he meant. 'I mean that you paid us more than if you'd been telling the truth,' he explained blandly, 'and enough more to make it all right.
When you're young and you don't grow up with a silver spoon in your mouth, what do you do? You do stuff that you're positive about to help you better your family and your life. That's basically where I was. I wanted to sing, that's what I knew I could do. With that, I really didn't know what that meant. Along the journey I realized what that meant and why I wanted to sing.
Just what is meant by 'your word?' It means your conscious intention, your conscious direction, your conscious faith and acceptance that, because of what you are doing, the Power of Spirit will flow through your word in the direction you give It.
There are certain ways you have to delude yourself. Self-delusion is important, for instance in family life. You know what I mean? If you're in love with your wife you have to go in there with blind faith. You have to support everything. And with your kids, you have to believe that you're doing something that has higher purpose; even though you don't have any evidence that that's the way it's going to turn out.
When we send our children to school, they learn nothing about us other than we used to be cotton pickers. Why, your grandfather was Nat Turner; your grandfather was Toussaint L'Ouverture; your grandfather was Hannibal. It was your grandfather's hands who forged civilization and it was your grandmother's hands who rocked the cradle of civilization. But the textbooks tell our children nothing.
Your soulmate doesn't just mean your husband or your boyfriend. I have friends in my life who I believe I was meant to meet and be a part of.
Family is just accident.... They don't mean to get on your nerves. They don't even mean to be your family, they just are.
I mean I love my family very much, but there is a difference when you're reuniting with your family outside of your hometown and reuniting in the family home.
In one way or another, everybody has this experience in their lives... the moment when you have to define your relationship to family and how your family's made you who you are, whether you've spent your life running from your family or deeply connected to your family.
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