Naguib Mahfouz Quotes

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

If we reject science, we reject the common man.

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

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

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

In Egypt today most people are concerned with getting bread to eat. Only some of the educated understand how democracy works.

We are passing through a very sensitive time, and on the whole, this country is facing very big problems.

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

The real malady is fear of life, not of death

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.

God did not intend religion to be an exercise club.

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

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

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

The Koran and the laws of all civilized nations legislate against the vilification of religions.

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.

The criminal is trying to solve his immediate problems.

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

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.

Insults are the business of the court.

I thought they would never select an Eastern writer for the Nobel. I was surprised.

Freedom of expression must be considered sacred and thought can only be corrected by counter thought.

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

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

Madness is the acme of intelligence.

Visit me once each year, for it’s wrong to abandon people forever.

Sadat made us feel more secure.

The heart is a place of secrets.

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

At my age it is unseemly to be pessimistic.

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

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.

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

History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.

Today’s interpretations of religion are often backward and contradict the needs of civilization.

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

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.

Excessive concern with religion seems to me a last resort for people who have been exhausted by life.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

You know what I’m afraid of? That God is sick of us.

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.

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.