 The criminal is trying to solve his immediate problems. |
| I've never worked in politics, never been a member of an official committee or a political party. |
| 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. |
| At my age it is unseemly to be pessimistic. |
| 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. |
| One effect that the Nobel Prize seems to have had is that more Arabic literary works have been translated into other languages. |
| The writer interweaves a story with his own doubts, questions, and values. That is art. |
| I was reading a lot of books I admired, and thought that I would like to write something like that someday. |
| I accepted the interviews and encounters that had to be held with the media, but I would have preferred to work in peace. |
| An allegory is not meant to be taken literally. There is a great lack of comprehension on the part of some readers. |
| If the urge to write should ever leave me, I want that day to be my last. |
| 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. |
| If you want to move people, you look for a point of sensitivity, and in Egypt nothing moves people as much as religion. |
| God did not intend religion to be an exercise club. |
| You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. |
| If we reject science, we reject the common man. |
| Sadat made us feel more secure. |
| I thought they would never select an Eastern writer for the Nobel. I was surprised. |
| 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. |
| Without literature my life would be miserable. |
