To acknowledge risk is to liberate oneself from it: Salman Rushdie

There is no such thing as 100% security, only degrees of insecurity, Salman Rushdie, a controversial and famed author, told delegates attending the 2010 RIMS Canada Conference in Edmonton.
“Once a person accepts that fact, they are free,” he said.
Rushdie’s novels have earned him top literary prizes around the world, but drew the ire of the Iranian government under Ayatollah Khomeini.
Publication of Rushdie’s 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, caused Khomeini to issue a ‘fatwa’ – a death edict – against the British author.
Rushdie went on to spend the next nine years under the protection of the British secret service, earning the same degree of security normally reserved for heads of state or the monarchy.
During this time, Rushdie said he learned to accept that even with the strictest security – and by extension, the most diligent risk management plan – no one is ever free of risk.
Despite having the most robust plan, strategy and training in place, “nobody is ever going to come to you and give you a free pass,” he said. “Once you realize that day will never come, then it becomes a difference of what you are prepared to live with and what you’re not prepared to live with.”
Acceptance of this fact allows individuals to go on to achieve great things, or “open the universe a little bit more,” he continued. “If you want to open the universe a little bit more, you cannot do that sitting safely in the middle of a room. You have to go out to the borders and push out.”