Top 47 Quotes by Naguib Mahfouz

I consider Khomeini's position dangerous. He does not have the right to pass judgment-that is not the Islamic way.

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

The criminal is trying to solve his immediate problems.

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

History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.

I believe society has a right to defend itself, just as the individual has the right to attack that with which he disagrees.

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.

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

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.