Rafael Leitão

“During those empty, sleepless nights, I thought a lot about The Knife as an idea. A knife was a tool, and acquired meaning from the use we made of it. Language, too, was a knife. I could cut open the world and reveal its meaning, its inner workings, its secrets, its truths. It could cut through from one reality to another. It could call bullshit, open people's eyes, create beauty. Language was my knife. If I had unexpectedly been caught in an unwanted knife fight, maybe this was the knife I could use to fight back.”
― Salman Rushdie, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

“Art is not a luxury. It stands at the essence of our humanity, and it asks for no special protection except the right to exist.”
― Salman Rushdie, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

“Something strange has happened to the idea of privacy in our surreal time. Instead of being cherished, it appears to have become, a valueless quality—actually undesirable. If a thing is not made public, it doesn’t really exist. Your dog, your wedding, your beach, your baby, your dinner, the interesting meme you recently saw—these things need, on a daily basis, to be shared. Where attention has become the thing most hungered for, where the quest for followers and likes is the new gluttony, privacy has become unnecessary, unwanted, even absurd.”
― Salman Rushdie, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

“Do you know what is the most common mistake people make when they’re in danger? Each one thinks their life is unique, and that death doesn’t affect them. No one believes in their own death. Do you think I believe in my own death?”
― Olga Tokarczuk, The Empusium