Naguib Mahfouz Quotes
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The criminal is trying to solve his immediate problems.
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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.
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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.
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When will the state of the country be sound?... When its people believe that the end result of cowardice is more disastrous than that of behaving with integrity.
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The calendar has a magic that makes us imagine a memory can be resurrected and revived, but nothing returns.
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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
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Writing is for men who can think and feel, not mindless sensation seekers out of nightclubs and bars. But these are bad times. We are condemned to work with upstarts, clowns who no doubt got their training in a circus and then turned to journalism as the appropriate place to display their tricks.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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For the first time in my life, I felt that a wave, a justice was sweeping away a deep-seated decay without any indulgence. I dearly wished that it would keep going without hesitation or deviation, in a spirit of purity forever.
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paraphrasing.."Science is the language of the intellect of society. Art is language of the entire human personality.
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Art is a criticism of society and life, and I believe that if life became perfect, art would be meaningless and cease to exist.