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At my age it is unseemly to be pessimistic.

Naguib Mahfouz

Age

I was reading a lot of books I admired, and thought that I would like to write something like that someday.

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.

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

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.

It is simply not part of my culture to preserve notes. I have never heard of a writer preserving his early drafts.

Naguib Mahfouz

Culture

Writer

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.

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.

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

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

We are passing through a very sensitive time, and on the whole, this country is facing very big problems.

The Koran and the laws of all civilized nations legislate against the vilification of religions.

The criminal is trying to solve his immediate problems.

Naguib Mahfouz

Problems

Trying

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.

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

Naguib Mahfouz

Day

Want