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

Naguib Mahfouz

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Naguib Mahfouz
Age: 94 †
Born: 1911
Born: December 11
Died: 2006
Died: August 30
Artist
Autobiographer
Film Writer
Intellectual
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Short Story Writer
Translator
Writer
Cairo
Egypt
Naguib Mahfouz Abdelaziz Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Basha
Civilization
Religion
Often
Today
Needs
Interpretations
Contradict
Backward
Interpretation

More quotes by Naguib Mahfouz

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I defend both the freedom of expression and society's right to counter it. I must pay the price for differing. It is the natural way of things.
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If life has no meaning, why don't we create a meaning for it?
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Madness is the acme of intelligence.
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Insults are the business of the court.
Naguib Mahfouz
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I am the son of two civilizations that at a certain age in history have formed a happy marriage. The first of these, seven thousand years old, is the Pharaonic civilization the second, one thousand four hundred years old, is the Islamic civilization.
Naguib Mahfouz
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The real malady is fear of life, not of death
Naguib Mahfouz
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If the urge to write should ever leave me, I want that day to be my last.
Naguib Mahfouz
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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.
Naguib Mahfouz
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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.
Naguib Mahfouz
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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.
Naguib Mahfouz
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Writing is for men who can think and feel, not mindless sensation seekers out of nightclubs and bars. But these are bad times. We are condemned to work with upstarts, clowns who no doubt got their training in a circus and then turned to journalism as the appropriate place to display their tricks.
Naguib Mahfouz
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It is simply not part of my culture to preserve notes. I have never heard of a writer preserving his early drafts.
Naguib Mahfouz
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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.
Naguib Mahfouz
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The writer interweaves a story with his own doubts, questions, and values. That is art.
Naguib Mahfouz
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Hosni Mubarak... his constitution is not democratic, but he is democratic. We can voice our opinions now. The press is free.
Naguib Mahfouz
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Winning Nobel imposed on me a lifestyle to which I am not used and which I would not have preferred.
Naguib Mahfouz
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We are passing through a very sensitive time, and on the whole, this country is facing very big problems.
Naguib Mahfouz
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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.
Naguib Mahfouz
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He seemed to be waiting for a miracle to save him from the depths his life had reached and take him to a land of dreams.
Naguib Mahfouz
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I believe in life and in people. I feel obliged to advocate their highest ideals as long as I believe them to be true. I also see myself compelled to revolt against ideals I believe to be false, since recoiling from rebellion would be a form of treason
Naguib Mahfouz