In this world without quiet corners, there can be no easy escapes from history, from hullabaloo, from terrible, unquiet fuss.

Rushdie’s line insists that modern life—political, media-saturated, and globally entangled—offers no secluded refuge from public events. “History” names the weight of collective pasts and conflicts; “hullabaloo” and “terrible, unquiet fuss” evoke the incessant noise of controversy, spectacle, and crisis. The quote rejects the fantasy of private innocence: even those who try to withdraw are still implicated in the forces shaping their societies. It also reflects a writerly credo associated with Rushdie’s work: literature and imagination do not float above politics but are made within it, and the artist’s task is to confront, not evade, the clamor of the world.