 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. |
| We are passing through a very sensitive time, and on the whole, this country is facing very big problems. |
| 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. |
| The Koran and the laws of all civilized nations legislate against the vilification of religions. |
| 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. |
| I didn't make any money from my writing until much later. I published about 80 stories for nothing. I spent on literature. |
| My wife thought I deserved it, but I always thought the Nobel a Western prize. |
| 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 believe society has a right to defend itself, just as the individual has the right to attack that with which he disagrees. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| Winning Nobel imposed on me a lifestyle to which I am not used and which I would not have preferred. |
| According to Islamic principles, when a man is accused of heresy, he is given the choice between repentance and punishment. |
| In Egypt today most people are concerned with getting bread to eat. Only some of the educated understand how democracy works. |
| 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. |
| I was a government employee in the morning and a writer in the evening. |
| 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. |
| Insults are the business of the court. |
| 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. |
| History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself. |
