Naguib Mahfouz Quotes

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Naguib Mahfouz

Profession : Novelist

Birth : December 11, 1911

God did not intend religion to be an exercise club.

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

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

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

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 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

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

The criminal is trying to solve his immediate problems.

Naguib Mahfouz

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.

Naguib Mahfouz

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

Naguib Mahfouz

Winning Nobel imposed on me a lifestyle to which I am not used and which I would not have preferred.

Naguib Mahfouz

I've never worked in politics, never been a member of an official committee or a political party.

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

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

Naguib Mahfouz

I accepted the interviews and encounters that had to be held with the media, but I would have preferred to work in peace.

Naguib Mahfouz

I didn't make any money from my writing until much later. I published about 80 stories for nothing. I spent on literature.

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

If we reject science, we reject the common man.

Naguib Mahfouz

I was a government employee in the morning and a writer in the evening.

Naguib Mahfouz

Without literature my life would be miserable.

Naguib Mahfouz