I Know Who I Am,

The Thing That Always Attracted Me To New York Was The Sense Of Being In A Place Where A Lot Of People Had A Lot Of Stories Not Unlike Mine,' Rushdie Says. 'everybody Comes From Somewhere Else. Everyone's Got A Polish Grandmother, Some Kind Of Metamorphosis In Their Family Circumstances. That's A Very Big Thing - The Experience Of Not Living Where You Started.

An Attack Upon Our Ability To Tell Stories Is Not Just Censorship - It Is A Crime Against Our Nature As Human Beings.

A People That Has Remained Convinced Of Its Greatness And Invulnerability, That Has Chosen To Believe Such A Myth In The Face Of All The Evidence, Is A People In The Grip Of A Kind Of Sleep, Or Madness.

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 Always Thought The Front Line Was The Bookstores. And Bookstores Around America, Around The World Did Astonishingly Well. They Held The Line. They Didn't Chicken Out. You Know, They Defended The Book. They Kept It In The Front Of The Store.