Hossam Naguib Quotes

We usually exchange bare civilities at breakfast and then settle back to loathe each other cordially in silence. ~ 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

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

An anxious heart is like a string that's out of tune. ~ 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

Perhaps boredom was an irrelevant concept for a life as monotonous as hers. ~ Naguib Mahfouz

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

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

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

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

Any government has to be friendly with investors and the business community. They provide jobs, new investments; they keep the country running. ~ Naguib Sawiris

Religion is a candle inside a multicolored lantern. Everyone looks through a particular color, but the candle is always there. ~ Muhammad Naguib

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

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

Laugh till you're exhausted. ~ Naguib Mahfouz

Run after truth until you're breathless. Accept the pain involved in re-creating yourself afresh. These ideas will take a life to comprehend, a hard one interspersed with drunken moments. ~ Naguib Mahfouz

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

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 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

Patience in the face of the bitterness of misfortune is the door to the sweetness of intimate discourse. ~ Naguib Mahfouz

My character and my behavior is not for politics. I say what I think. I'm too liberal. ~ Naguib Sawiris

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

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 found myself in a sea in which the waves of joy and sorrow were clashing against each other. ~ 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

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

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

He shook his head sadly. 'What a fool you are. You've wasted your ability searching for something that doesn't exist.'
'When will you realize you don't exist? ~ 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

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

I want a world where hearts are not deceived and do not deceive others. ~ Naguib Mahfouz

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

Take your fill, for you will not see again that which you are leaving. Every moment is the last. ~ Naguib Mahfouz

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. ~ 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

A priest's life is spent between question and answer
or between a question and the attempt to answer it. The question is the summary of the spiritual life. ~ 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

Only the poor are handicapped by honor. ~ 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