Lunchtime #read “My fate, over the past many years, has been to drink from the bottle marked Freedom and therefore to write without any restraint those books that came to my mind to write, and now, as I am on the verge of publishing my twenty-second volume, I have to say that on twenty-one of those twenty-two occasions the elixir has been well worth drinking. On the remaining occasion, namely, the publication of my fourth novel, I learned—many of us learned—that freedom can create an equal and opposite reaction from the forces of unfreedom, and I learned, too, how to face the consequences of that reaction, and to continue, as best I could, to be as unfettered an artist as I had always wished to be. I learned, too, that many other writers and artists, exercising their freedom, also faced the forces of unfreedom, and that, in short, freedom can be a dangerous wine to drink. But that made it more necessary, more essential to defend.” ~Salman Rushdie If Peace Were a Prize
The New Yorker
If Peace Were a Prize
If the world of fable teaches us anything, it’s that even our most precious values are contingent, or won at great cost.
