It's very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it. To say that the book which you have not opened, which you have not read, which you do not possess, offends you seems to me to be not just a peculiar position but a reprehensible position.
—Salman Rushdie, Indian-born British novelist and essayist, The Sunday Times of London, October 2, 1994