Naguib Mahfouz quotes

Naguib Mahfouz was an Egyptian novelist widely regarded as one of the most important writers in Arabic literature. His works, especially the Cairo Trilogy, explore Egyptian society and culture with remarkable depth and realism. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the first Arabic-language writer to receive this honor. Here are 55 of his quotes:

God did not intend religion to be an exercise club.

Naguib Mahfouz

According to Islamic principles, when a man is accused of heresy, he is given the choice between repentance and punishment.

Naguib Mahfouz

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

Events at home, at work, in the street - these are the bases for a story.

Naguib Mahfouz

The criminal is trying to solve his immediate problems.

Naguib Mahfouz

The writer interweaves a story with his own doubts, questions, and values. That is art.

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

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

Naguib Mahfouz

History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.

Naguib Mahfouz

Naguib Mahfouz, an Egyptian novelist who was the first Arabic writer to receive the Nobel Prize for literature and who was often considered the greatest writer in the Arab world... lived his entire life in Cairo, which provided the inspiration and backdrop for almost all of his writing... He set most of his works in the ancient Islamic quarter of Cairo, with its mosques and serpentine alleys teeming with shopkeepers, metalsmiths, government workers, peasants, prostitutes and thieves. His vibrant novels portraying life at every level of society were often likened to those of such other writers of urban social realism as Charles Dickens, Honore de Balzac and Emile Zola.

Naguib Mahfouz

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

Naguib Mahfouz

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

An allegory is not meant to be taken literally. There is a great lack of comprehension on the part of some readers.

Naguib Mahfouz

I love Sufism as I love beautiful poetry, but it is not the answer. Sufism is like a mirage in the desert. It says to you, come and sit, relax and enjoy yourself for a while.

Naguib Mahfouz

Without literature my life would be miserable.

Naguib Mahfouz

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.

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 believe society has a right to defend itself, just as the individual has the right to attack that with which he disagrees.

Naguib Mahfouz

At my age it is unseemly to be pessimistic.

Naguib Mahfouz

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.

Naguib Mahfouz

In Egypt today most people are concerned with getting bread to eat. Only some of the educated understand how democracy works.

Naguib Mahfouz

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.

Naguib Mahfouz