Naguib Mahfouz Best Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

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

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

Insults are the business of the court. — 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

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

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