Naguib Mahfouz Quotes
I was reading a lot of books I admired, and thought that I would like to write something like that someday. 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. I've never worked in politics, never been a member of an official committee or a political party. If the urge to write should ever leave me, I want that day to be my last. If we reject science, we reject the common man. If you want to move people, you look for a point of sensitivity, and in Egypt nothing moves people as much as religion. In Egypt today most people are concerned with getting bread to eat. Only some of the educated understand how democracy works. Insults are the business of the court. It is simply not part of my culture to preserve notes. I have never heard of a writer preserving his early drafts. 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. My countrymen have the right to shake my hand and talk to me if they so wish. Don't forget that their support and their reading of my works is what brought me the Nobel prize. My wife thought I deserved it, but I always thought the Nobel a Western prize. One effect that the Nobel Prize seems to have had is that more Arabic literary works have been translated into other languages. Sadat made us feel more secure. 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. The criminal is trying to solve his immediate problems. The Koran and the laws of all civilized nations legislate against the vilification of religions. 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. The writer interweaves a story with his own doubts, questions, and values. That is art. 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.
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