Excerpt from Rushdie and Terry Gilliam interview

Two of my heroes!

On Don Quixote:

There’s a great translation of Quixote. Most translations ofQuixote into English suck. They make the book seem about as deadly dull as it’s possible to be. And then at one point, a couple hundred years ago, the novelist Tobias Smollett translated Quixote and his Spanish is not perfect. If you’re looking for a literal translation, it’s not. It’s the only translation in English that feels as rambunctious as the original feels in Spanish. It opens up the book completely.
There’s a wonderful sentence at the end of Don Quixote the novel, where Quixote, old and dying, has come to his senses and understood that he’s been nuts all his life. And the phrase he uses to describe his madness is: “I’ve been looking for this year’s birds in last year’s nests.” Which seems to me a wonderful description of both insanity and the movie industry.

On arriving in US for the first time:

There was a time when I had hair, too. And about the time you came to Europe, I made my first visit to America. Actually, on an advertising gig. I was being asked to write travel advertising, encouraging people to take their vacations in the United States. But I had never been in the United States. So the American government, I guess under Nixon, kindly sent me on a free trip around America to have a vacation so I could go home and write about having one. I arrived in San Francisco with long hair, no beard, but a Zapata mustache—remember those? I mean, that’s how long ago it was. And there was a sign in the immigration office saying [mimics flat American accent] “A few extra minutes in customs is a small price to pay to save your children from the menace of drugs.”

We’re standing in line, and in front of me there’s this kind of classic, American redneck guy with a very red neck about this wide. [Holds out hands almost a foot apart.] He turned around to me, and with a complete change of heart, he said, “Buddy, I sure feel sorry for you.” And he was right. I mean, I got taken to pieces. I got strip searched, I got everything. And I arrived in America, you know, for the first time, trembling. There was this tiny lady standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus, and she saw that I was trembling. She said, “What’s the matter, dear?” and it kind of all poured out. And—this was the other side of America—she did this amazing thing, she apologized on behalf of the United States. She put her hands in the elocution position. [Holds out hands in front of chest, fingers interlocking, pinkie to thumb.] She looked like Grandma Clampett, this tiny old lady. And she made a formal apology on behalf of the American people. And it fixed it, you know. Then it was all right. Then I could go and enjoy America.

Here's the full article if you're interested: http://www.believermag.com/issues/200303/?read=interview_gilliam