Naguib Mahfouz Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
More Naguib Mahfouz quote about:
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- Home,
- Literature,
- Reading,
- Writing,
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“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 a most distressing affliction to have a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“I found myself in a sea in which the waves of joy and sorrow were clashing against each other.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“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.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“Home is not where you were born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“When you spend time with your friends, what do you talk about? Those things which made an impression on you that day, that week ... I write stories the same way. Events at home, in school, at work, in the street, these are the bases for a story. Some experiences leave such a deep impression that instead of talking about them at the club I work them into a novel.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“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.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“Fear does not prevent death. It prevents life.”
-- 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 -
“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 -
“Events at home, at work, in the street - these are the bases for a story.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“We are passing through a very sensitive time, and on the whole, this country is facing very big problems.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“The real malady is fear of life, not of death”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“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.”
-- 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 -
“At my age it is unseemly to be pessimistic.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“If the urge to write should ever leave me, I want that day to be my last.”
-- 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 -
“Without literature my life would be miserable.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“God did not intend religion to be an exercise club.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“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.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“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.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“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.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“A priest's life is spent between question and answer-- or between a question and the attempt to answer it. The question is the summary of the spiritual life.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“Excessive concern with religion seems to me a last resort for people who have been exhausted by life.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“We wont develop until we accept that reading is a vital necessity.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“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”
-- Naguib Mahfouz -
“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.”
-- Naguib Mahfouz
