Naguib Mahfouz

Novelist

1911-12-11 – 2006-08-30

Naguib Mahfouz was an Egyptian novelist and screenwriter and the first Arab-language writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He is known for The Cairo Trilogy and major works of modern Arabic fiction.

Quotes by Naguib Mahfouz

Fear does not prevent death. It prevents life.
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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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Beauty itself is a painful convulsion in the heart, an abundance of vitality in the soul, and a mad chase undertaken by the spirit until it encounters the heavens.
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Oh...why has time changed us?
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I want a world where men live free from fear and coercion.
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Beauty itself is a painful convulsion in the heart, an abundance of vitality in the soul, and a mad chase undertaken by the spirit until it encounters the heavens.
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Oh...why has time changed us?
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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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I want a world where men live free from fear and coercion.
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Fear does not prevent death. It prevents life.
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At my age it is unseemly to be pessimistic.
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History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.
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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.
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One effect that the Nobel Prize seems to have had is that more Arabic literary works have been translated into other languages.
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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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Art is a criticism of society and life, and I believe that if life became perfect, art would be meaningless and cease to exist.
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The real malady is fear of life, not death.
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For the first time in my life, I felt that a wave, a justice was sweeping away a deep-seated decay without any indulgence. I dearly wished that it would keep going without hesitation or deviation, in a spirit of purity forever.
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