Naguib Mahfouz Quotes

If there was a dog in the house—other than its owner, of course—it would now fill the universe with barking.

She's forgotten too, that woman who sprang from filth, from vermin, from treachery and infidelity.

Listen, Said. Things are no longer what they used to be. In the past, you were both a thief and my friend, for reasons you well know. Now the situation has changed. If you go back to a burglary you'll be a thief and nothing else."

They think my God and I are defeated. But he never betrays not does he accept defeat.

the priests are swindlers” and the “temples are brothels, and there is nothing they hold sacred but their carnal desires.

[...Life] is a sky laden with clouds of contradictions.

You will never accuse me of meekness hereafter, Father, for I am swept by a sacred desire, strong as the northern winds, a desire to know the truth and record it, as you did in the prime of your youth.

The Harafish is a labyrinth where the paths of the lowly and the noble intertwine.

The Harafish is a reflection of the eternal struggle between good and evil.

In the Harafish, dreams are carried on the shoulders of ordinary people.

[....] was struck by the idea of a woman's weakness is her emotions, and that her relationships with men should be rational and calculated. Life is precious, with vast possibilities, limitless horizons. Love is nothing more than a blind beggar, creeping around the alleyways.

Why do people laugh, dance in triumph, feel recklessly secure in positions of power? Why do they not remember the true place in the scheme of things and their inevitable end?

He and Raifa each lived in hell, in a world of tedium.

Some consider that such tragedies afflicting apparently blameless people are signs of revengeful justice, the wisdom of which is beyond the understanding of most people. So you will hear them say that if the bereaved father, for example, thought deeply, he would realize his loss was just a punishment for some sin either he or his forebears committed. Yet surely God is more just and merciful than to treat the innocent as the guilty...

What hopeless wretches we are. Our country is pitiful and so are the people. Why is it that the only time we find a little happiness is when the world is involved in a bloody war? Surely it's only the devil who has pity on us in this world.