Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Naguib Mahfouz



Naguib Mahfouz was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. He is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers of Arabic literature, along with Taha Hussein, to explore themes of existentialism.

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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.”

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“It's a most distressing affliction to have a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind.”

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“I found myself in a sea in which the waves of joy and sorrow were clashing against each other.”

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“Home is not where you were born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease.”

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“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.”

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“Madness is the acme of intelligence.”

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“Fear does not prevent death. It prevents life.”

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“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.”

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

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

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

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“God did not intend religion to be an exercise club.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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