Quotes from 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.

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

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

If the urge to write should ever leave me, I want that day to be my last.

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

At my age it is unseemly to be pessimistic.

Insults are the business of the court.

"Death by love is fairer by far than death by illness", said Amenhotep III.

The real malady is fear of life, not of death

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.

As the tension eases, we must look in the direction of agriculture, industry and education as our final goals, and toward democracy under Mr Mubarak.

God did not intend religion to be an exercise club.

If you want to move people, you look for a point of sensitivity, and in Egypt nothing moves people as much as religion.

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.

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

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.

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

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

God did not intend religion to be an exercise club.

At my age it is unseemly to be pessimistic.

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

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.

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

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.