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've never worked in politics, never been a member of an official committee or a political party.
One effect that the Nobel Prize seems to have had is that more Arabic literary works have been translated into other languages.
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'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 wife thought I deserved it, but I always thought the Nobel a Western prize.
You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
Without literature my life would be miserable.
Winning Nobel imposed on me a lifestyle to which I am not used and which I would not have preferred.
We used the Western style to express our own themes and stories. But don't forget that our heritage includes The Thousand and One Nights.