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It was amazing that in this country where people allowed emotion to guide their politics they approached love with the precision of accountants.
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
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I am practically in the employ of Mr. Nobel. I have to meet everyone he sends my way.
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 -
I reject any path which rejects life, but I can't help loving Sufism because it sounds so beautiful. It gives relief in the midst of battle.
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.
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.
Naguib Mahfouz
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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 -
I've never worked in politics, never been a member of an official committee or a political party.
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 -
Hosni Mubarak... his constitution is not democratic, but he is democratic. We can voice our opinions now. The press is free.
Naguib Mahfouz -
Excessive concern with religion seems to me a last resort for people who have been exhausted by life.
Naguib Mahfouz -
I thought they would never select an Eastern writer for the Nobel. I was surprised.
Naguib Mahfouz
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I consider Khomeini's position dangerous. He does not have the right to pass judgment-that is not the Islamic way.
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 -
If the urge to write should ever leave me, I want that day to be my last.
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 -
Winning Nobel imposed on me a lifestyle to which I am not used and which I would not have preferred.
Naguib Mahfouz -
God did not intend religion to be an exercise club.
Naguib Mahfouz
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Sadat made us feel more secure.
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 -
Today's interpretations of religion are often backward and contradict the needs of civilization.
Naguib Mahfouz -
The writer interweaves a story with his own doubts, questions, and values. That is art.
Naguib Mahfouz