Naguib Mahfouz quotes

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. (Naguib Mahfouz)
God did not intend religion to be an exercise club. View quote
Naguib Mahfouz
According to Islamic principles, when a man is accused of heresy, he is given the choice between repentance and punishment. View quote
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. View quote
Naguib Mahfouz
Events at home, at work, in the street - these are the bases for a story. View quote
Naguib Mahfouz
The criminal is trying to solve his immediate problems. View quote
Naguib Mahfouz
The writer interweaves a story with his own doubts, questions, and values. That is art. View quote
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. View quote
Naguib Mahfouz
Today's interpretations of religion are often backward and contradict the needs of civilization. View quote
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. View quote
Naguib Mahfouz
Voices were blended and intermingled in a tumultuous swirl around which eddied laughter, shouts, the squeaking of doors and windows, piano and accordion music, rollicking handclaps, a policeman's bark, braying, grunts, coughs of hashish addicts and screams of drunkards, anonymous calls for help, raps of a stick, and singing by individuals and groups. (Naguib Mahfouz)
Naguib Mahfouz, an Egyptian novelist who was the first Arabic writer to receive the Nobel Prize for literature and who was often considered the greatest writer in the Arab world... lived his entire life in Cairo, which provided the inspiration and backdrop for almost all of his writing... He set most of his works in the ancient Islamic quarter of Cairo, with its mosques and serpentine alleys teeming with shopkeepers, metalsmiths, government workers, peasants, prostitutes and thieves. His vibrant novels portraying life at every level of society were often likened to those of such other writers of urban social realism as Charles Dickens, Honore de Balzac and Emile Zola. View quote
Naguib Mahfouz
Nothing records the effects of a sad life so graphically as the human body. View quote
Naguib Mahfouz
It was amazing that in this country where people allowed emotion to guide their politics they approached love with the precision of accountants. View quote
Naguib Mahfouz
An allegory is not meant to be taken literally. There is a great lack of comprehension on the part of some readers. View quote
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. View quote
Naguib Mahfouz
Without literature my life would be miserable. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Naguib Mahfouz
We are passing through a very sensitive time, and on the whole, this country is facing very big problems. (Naguib Mahfouz)
At my age it is unseemly to be pessimistic. View quote
Naguib Mahfouz
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. View quote
Naguib Mahfouz
In Egypt today most people are concerned with getting bread to eat. Only some of the educated understand how democracy works. View quote
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. View quote
Naguib Mahfouz