Quotes By Naguib Mahfouz
It's clearly more important to treat one's fellow man well than to be always praying and fasting and touching one's head to a prayer mat.
Naguib Mahfouz
I started writing while I was a little boy. Maybe it's because I was reading a lot of books I admired, and thought that I would like to write something like that someday. Also, my love for good writing pushed me.
Naguib Mahfouz
My countrymen have the right to shake my hand and talk to me if they so wish. Don't forget that their support and their reading of my works is what brought me the Nobel prize.
Naguib Mahfouz
We used the Western style to express our own themes and stories. But don't forget that our heritage includes The Thousand and One Nights.
Naguib Mahfouz
History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.
Naguib Mahfouz
Today's interpretations of religion are often backward and contradict the needs of civilization.
Naguib Mahfouz
I am practically in the employ of Mr. Nobel. I have to meet everyone he sends my way.
Naguib Mahfouz
The Nobel Prize has given me, for the first time in my life, the feeling that my literature could be appreciated on an international level.
Naguib Mahfouz
We are like a woman with a difficult pregnancy. We have to rebuild the social classes in Egypt, and we must change the way things were.
Naguib Mahfouz
You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
Naguib Mahfouz
There are no heroes in most of my stories. I look at our society with a critical eye and find nothing extraordinary in the people I see.
Naguib Mahfouz
I accepted the interviews and encounters that had to be held with the media, but I would have preferred to work in peace.
Naguib Mahfouz
In Egypt today most people are concerned with getting bread to eat. Only some of the educated understand how democracy works.
Naguib Mahfouz
We are passing through a very sensitive time, and on the whole, this country is facing very big problems.
Naguib Mahfouz
I reject any path which rejects life, but I can't help loving Sufism because it sounds so beautiful. It gives relief in the midst of battle.
Naguib Mahfouz
If you want to move people, you look for a point of sensitivity, and in Egypt nothing moves people as much as religion.
Naguib Mahfouz
The Koran and the laws of all civilized nations legislate against the vilification of religions.
Naguib Mahfouz
As the tension eases, we must look in the direction of agriculture, industry and education as our final goals, and toward democracy under Mr Mubarak.
Naguib Mahfouz
It is simply not part of my culture to preserve notes. I have never heard of a writer preserving his early drafts.
Naguib Mahfouz
The Arab world also won the Nobel with me. I believe that international doors have opened, and that from now on, literate people will consider Arab literature also. We deserve that recognition.
Naguib Mahfouz
I was suffering from a peculiar and persistent sense that I was being pursued, and also the conviction that under the political order of the times, our lives had no meaning.
Naguib Mahfouz
I believe society has a right to defend itself, just as the individual has the right to attack that with which he disagrees.
Naguib Mahfouz