The quotable Salman Rushdie

I heard an interview with Salman Rushdie on the BBC. He's just written a sequel to Haroun and the Sea of Stories. I didn't realize it because I've never followed his fiction career much but it was written during the height of the fatwa crisis. He said he was against thinking that was defined by anger. I always was hesitant about Rushdie because for starters, I usually hate magical realism (unless it's served up with sarcastic yet thoughtful wit a la The Monsters of Templeton) and also because his books always struck me as the sort that academics raved about and yet were totally unreadable. Deciding what to read is going to require some judicious investigation.