Mahfouz Quotes & Sayings

All Egyptians, not only the protestors, have broken through the fear barrier, therefore I expect only one outcome - protests will continue until Mubarak steps down from power. — Asmaa Mahfouz

As for life's tragedies, our love will defeat them. Love is the most effective cure. In the crevices of disasters, happiness lies like a diamond in a mind, so let us instill in ourselves the wisdom of love. — Naguib Mahfouz

Mahlia ... understood Doctor Mahfouz and his blind rush into the village. He wasn't trying to change them. He wasn't trying to save anyone. He was just trying to not be part of the sickness. Mahlia had thought he was stupid for walking straight into death, but now, as she lay against the pillar, she saw it differently. She thought she'd been surviving. She thought that she'd been fighting for herself. But all she'd done was create more killing, and in the end it had all led to this moment, where they bargained with a demon ... not for their lives, but for their souls (p. 403) — Paolo Bacigalupi

I was afraid of marriage. I had the impression married life would take up all my time. I saw myself drowning in visits and parties. No freedom. — Naguib Mahfouz

He seemed to be waiting for a miracle to save him from the depths his life had reached and take him to a land of dreams. — Naguib Mahfouz

At times people who are extremely sad become lighthearted for the most trivial reasons, merely to obtain the relief furnished by the exactly opposite condition. — Naguib Mahfouz

But not to take a step forward is to take two steps backward", Abnum protested.

~ Before the Throne — Naguib Mahfouz

Literature should be more revolutionary than revolutions themselves; writers must find the means to continue to be critical of the negative elements in the sociopolitical reality. — Naguib Mahfouz

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

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

The calendar has a magic that makes us imagine a memory can be resurrected and revived, but nothing returns. — Naguib Mahfouz

The One God fashioned women to expose the elements men are made of said Queen Nefertiti. — 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

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

Modern Arabic literature achieved international recognition when Mahfouz was awarded the Nobel prize in 1988 ( ... ) Mahfouz also rendered Arabic literature a great service by developing, over the years, a form of language in which many of the archaisms and cliches that had become fashionable were discarded, a language that could serve as an adequate instrument for the writing of fiction in these times. — Denys Johnson-Davies

Death by love is fairer by far than death by illness, said Amenhotep III. — Naguib Mahfouz

At my age it is unseemly to be pessimistic. — Naguib Mahfouz

Writing is for men who can think and feel, not mindless sensation seekers out of nightclubs and bars. But these are bad times. We are condemned to work with upstarts, clowns who no doubt got their training in a circus and then turned to journalism as the appropriate place to display their tricks. — Naguib Mahfouz

We wont develop until we accept that reading is a vital necessity. — Naguib Mahfouz

How to be bored while the sky is blue, and the Earth is green, and the flowers have this wonderful aroma, and the heart has this wonderful ability to love, and the soul has this infinite energy to believe. How to be bored while in this world there are those whom we love and like .and those who love us and like us — 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 thought they would never select an Eastern writer for the Nobel. I was surprised. — Naguib Mahfouz

Madness is the acme of intelligence. — Naguib Mahfouz

Today's interpretations of religion are often backward and contradict the needs of civilization. — Naguib Mahfouz

What do you have to say as a devout Muslim concerning your lust for women? — Naguib Mahfouz

What a lot of graves there are laid out as far as the eye can see!. Their headstones are like hands raised in surrender, though they are beyond being threatened by anything. A city of silence and truth, where success and failure, murderer and victim come together, where thieves and policeman lie side by side in peace for the first and last time. — Naguib Mahfouz

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

After living for a month in his home, her character had been infected with the virus of submission to his will, which terrified everyone in the house. — Naguib Mahfouz

I am not scared, I will not be silenced, and I will continue to take to the streets and criticise any wrong doing that I see. — Asmaa Mahfouz

Muhammad Iffat has an inflexible, Turkish mentality but a heart of gold. — 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

Love is like health. It is taken lightly when present and cherished when it departs. — 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

Watch out, brother. Turkish women end up going crazy. — Naguib Mahfouz

The criminal is trying to solve his immediate problems. — Naguib Mahfouz

Paraphrasing..Science is the language of the intellect of society. Art is language of the entire human personality. — Naguib Mahfouz

Hosni Mubarak ... his constitution is not democratic, but he is democratic. We can voice our opinions now. The press is free. — Naguib Mahfouz

Beauty itself is a painful convulsion in the heart, an abundance of vitality in the soul, and a mad chase undertaken by the spirit until it encounters the heavens. — Naguib Mahfouz

An allegory is not meant to be taken literally. There is a great lack of comprehension on the part of some readers. — Naguib Mahfouz

Falseness in life is the secret that makes man's inner self a rare truth; it hides from him although it's obvious to all. — Naguib Mahfouz

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. — Naguib Mahfouz

My wife thought I deserved it, but I always thought the Nobel a Western prize. — 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

Laugh till you're exhausted. — Naguib Mahfouz

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

I love Sufism as I love beautiful poetry, but it is not the answer. Sufism is like a mirage in the desert. It says to you, come and sit, relax and enjoy yourself for a while. — Naguib Mahfouz

If we reject science, we reject the common man. — Naguib Mahfouz

When we're in love, we may resent it, but we certainly miss love once it's gone. — Naguib Mahfouz

The writer interweaves a story with his own doubts, questions, and values. That is art. — Naguib Mahfouz

When you spend time with your friends, what do you talk about? Those things which made an impression on you that day, that week ... I write stories the same way. Events at home, in school, at work, in the street, these are the bases for a story. Some experiences leave such a deep impression that instead of talking about them at the club I work them into a novel. — Naguib Mahfouz

Every inch a person's body travels on the road of separation seems like miles to the heart. — Naguib Mahfouz

Death is more merciful than hope itself! There is nothing surprising in this, for death is divinely appointed, while hope is the creation of human folly. Both end in frustration. Am I destined to lead a life of endless frustration?
-(The Beginning and the End) — Naguib Mahfouz

I want a world where men live free from fear and coercion. — Naguib Mahfouz

How could the prisoner break his chains? I pictured a world, a righteous world, with no sin, no bonds, no social obligations; a world throbbing with creativity, innovation, and thought, nothing else; a world of dedicated solitude, without father, mother, wife, or child; a world where a man could travel lightly, immersed in art alone. — Naguib Mahfouz

No blasphemy harms Islam and Muslims so much as the call for murdering a writer — Naguib Mahfouz

Sadat made us feel more secure. — Naguib Mahfouz

Fear doesn't prevent death. It prevents life. — Naguib Mahfouz

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

Doctor Mahfouz was always yammering on about how everyone had humanity in them. From Mahlia's experience, the doctor was sliding high, but now, as she looked at this sergeant named Ocho, she wondered if there was some bit of softness in this hard scarred boy that she might be able to work. — Paolo Bacigalupi

I believe in life and in people. I feel obliged to advocate their highest ideals as long as I believe them to be true. I also see myself compelled to revolt against ideals I believe to be false, since recoiling from rebellion would be a form of treason — Naguib Mahfouz

Just think," I say, trying to calm her down. "The two of us naked in a car, but safe and sound all the same, kissing each other to the clap of thunder and the sound of the driving rain!"
"This is impossible," she says.
"But just think. Wouldn't you like, from this snug little shelter in the midst of cosmic rage, to stick your tongue out to the entire world? — Naguib Mahfouz

I am the son of two civilizations that at a certain age in history have formed a happy marriage. The first of these, seven thousand years old, is the Pharaonic civilization; the second, one thousand four hundred years old, is the Islamic civilization. — Naguib Mahfouz

It's not surprising that truly humanitarian manifestos originate frequently in minority circles or with people whose consciences are troubled by the problems of minorities. — Naguib Mahfouz

I now believe that people are bustards with no ethics. It would be better for them to admit it and build their communal life on that admission. The new ethical issue becomes how to maintain public welfare and human happiness in a society of bustards and scum — Naguib Mahfouz

A crazy country, choking air, polluted hearts, treachery. Treachery and treason. — 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

Isn't it sad that a man of no significance like this marriage clerk should impede the progress of your life? But a lowly worm eats the corpses of the most exalted individuals. — Naguib Mahfouz

According to Islamic principles, when a man is accused of heresy, he is given the choice between repentance and punishment. — Naguib Mahfouz

Art is a criticism of society and life, and I believe that if life became perfect, art would be meaningless and cease to exist. — Naguib Mahfouz

God did not intend religion to be an exercise club. — Naguib Mahfouz

He knew Muhammad Iffat was of Turkish descent and stubborn as a mule. — Naguib Mahfouz

Nothing records the effects of a sad life so graphically as the human body. — Naguib Mahfouz

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

One effect that the Nobel Prize seems to have had is that more Arabic literary works have been translated into other languages. — Naguib Mahfouz

There is no alternative to action, and that requires faith. The issue is how we are to mold for ourselves a belief system that is worthy of life. — Naguib Mahfouz

It is an indication of truth's jealousy that it has not made for anyone a path to it, and that it has not deprived anyone of the hope of attaining it, and it has left people running in the deserts of perplexity and drowning in the seas of doubt; and he who thinks he has attained it, it dissociates itself from, and he who thinks he has dissociated himself from it has lost his way. — Naguib Mahfouz

Happy is he who can give himself up. — 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

Insults are the business of the court. — Naguib Mahfouz

In the calculus of good deeds you have the most to gain. — Naguib Mahfouz

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

The real malady is fear of life, not of death — Naguib Mahfouz

You know what I'm afraid of? That God is sick of us. — Naguib Mahfouz

Home is not where you were born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease. — Naguib Mahfouz

It's a most distressing affliction to have a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind. — Naguib Mahfouz

Despite dissimilarities in our luck and success at looking after ourselves, we are all human beings. — 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

Why don't we keep track of the happy moments, so that afterward we will believe them? Is he the same man Was he really sincere? — Naguib Mahfouz

When disasters come at the same time, they compete with each other. — Naguib Mahfouz

Don't go back over the past. Let it depart, never to return. — Naguib Mahfouz

Oh...why has time changed us? — 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

April. Month of dust and lies. — Naguib Mahfouz

If life has no meaning, why don't we create a meaning for it? — Naguib Mahfouz

I was reading a lot of books I admired, and thought that I would like to write something like that someday. — 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

An anxious heart is like a string that's out of tune. — Naguib Mahfouz