Quotes By Naguib Mahfouz

I was a government employee in the morning and a writer in the evening.

I consider Khomeini's position dangerous. He does not have the right to pass judgment-that is not the Islamic way.

I didn't make any money from my writing until much later. I published about 80 stories for nothing. I spent on literature.

I wake up early in the morning and walk for an hour. If I have something to write, I prefer to write in the morning until midday, and in the afternoon, I eat.

Winning Nobel imposed on me a lifestyle to which I am not used and which I would not have preferred.

I defend both the freedom of expression and society's right to counter it. I must pay the price for differing. It is the natural way of things.

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.

I've never worked in politics, never been a member of an official committee or a political party.

Insults are the business of the court.

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.

If we reject science, we reject the common man.

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.

I am practically in the employ of Mr. Nobel. I have to meet everyone he sends my way.

Events at home, at work, in the street - these are the bases for a story.

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.

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.

If the urge to write should ever leave me, I want that day to be my last.