Quotes from Nawal El Saadawi

How had he become her every moment? How had a man become her whole life? How could a person consume all her attention? She didn't know how it had happened. She wasn't the sort of woman that gives her life away to anyone. Her life was too important to give to one man. Above all, her life was not her own but belonged to the world, which she wanted to change.

Fouada, the young child, listened without understanding a word of what he said but instead read the teacher's features as he spoke. When he said the word 'private', she didn't understand what it meant, but she felt from his expression that it meant something ugly and obscene, and she shrank into her chair, grieving for her female self.

I knew that my profession had been invented by men, and that men were in control of both our worlds, the one on earth, and the one in heaven. That men force women to sell their bodies at a price, and that the lowest paid body is that of a wife. All women are prostitutes of one kind or another. Because I was intelligent I preferred to be a free prostitute, rather than an enslaved wife.

I had believed that my homeland was the whole world, just as when I was a child I believed that our street was the whole homeland. As I grew up so the street grew smaller. But when my being reached out beyond the homeland, the earth shrank and new feelings, that I was larger than before, filled me.

I was on the point of losing, or had just lost, for ever. My fingers held on to her hand with such violence that no force on earth, no matter how great, could tear it away from me.

Oleh karena dunia penuh dusta, ia harus membayar harganya dengan kematian.

My life means their death. My death means their life. And life for them means more crime, more plunder, unlimited booty.

Ada baiknya bahwa saya tetap awam terhadap kenyataan itu.

But in love I gave all: my capabilities, my efforts, my feelings, my deepest emotions. Like a saint, I gave everything I had without ever counting the cost.

But she stood accused and as long as she did so she had relinquished all right to respect. Men's eyes took possession of her body the way they appropriated those of prostitutes. Something pushed her. She shrank into her coat, burying her head in its wide collar.

She was unsure of the meaning of the word 'envy' but had inherited it as she'd inherited her nose and arms and eyes.

But she stood accused and as long as she did she had relinquished all right to respect. Men's eyes took possession of her body thr way they appropriated those of prostitutes. Something pushed her. She shrank into her coat, burying her head in its wide collar.