Naguib Mahfouz

"God did not intend religion to be an exercise club."

"It is something worth picking from the thrash-can the alluring experience of the working days."

"Voices were blended and intermingled in a tumultuous swirl around which eddied laughter, shouts, the squeaking of doors and windows, piano and accordion music, rollicking handclaps, a policemans bark, braying, grunts, coughs of hashish addicts and screams of drunkards, anonymous calls for help, raps of a stick, and singing by individuals and groups."

"According to Islamic principles, when a man is accused of heresy, he is given the choice between repentance and punishment."

"Abbas now marveled at the strength of love, its power and its strange magic. He thought it right that God had created mankind capable of love and then left the task of developing life to the fertility of love."

"You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions."

"It was amazing that in this country where people allowed emotion to guide their politics they approached love with the precision of accountants."

"Kirsha thought of Hitler as the worlds greatest bully; indeed his admiration for him stemmed from what he heard of his cruelty and barbarity. He wished him success, viewing him like those mythical bravados of literature Antar and Abu Zaid."

"If money is the aim and object of those who squabble for power, then there is clearly no harm in money being the objective of the poor voters."

"Its fantastic the way these young men act. Why, they scarcely have a penny to their names, yet they see no reason why they shouldnt get married and populate the whole alley with children who get their food from garbage carts."

"[Mahfouzs fiction allowed readers the] rare privilege of entering a national psychology, in a way that thousands of journalistic articles or television documentaries could not achieve."

"Satan finds the doors of youth an easy entrance and he slips in both secretly and openly to spread his havoc. We should do all we can do to prevent the doors of youth opening to him and keep them tightly closed. Just think of elderly men to whom age has given the keys of respectability. What would be the situation if we were to see them deliberately opening these doors and calling out in invitation to the devil?"