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.
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 accepted the interviews and encounters that had to be held with the media, but I would have preferred to work in peace.
My wife thought I deserved it, but I always thought the Nobel a Western prize.
In the calculus of good deeds you have the most to gain.
In Egypt today most people are concerned with getting bread to eat. Only some of the educated understand how democracy works.
A priest’s life is spent between question and answer – or between a question and the attempt to answer it. The question is the summary of the spiritual life.
I am practically in the employ of Mr. Nobel. I have to meet everyone he sends my way.
I thought they would never select an Eastern writer for the Nobel. I was surprised.
I didn’t make any money from my writing until much later. I published about 80 stories for nothing. I spent on literature.
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.
I consider Khomeini’s position dangerous. He does not have the right to pass judgment-that is not the Islamic way.
When we’re in love, we may resent it, but we certainly miss love once it’s gone.
Laugh till you’re exhausted.
Don’t go back over the past. Let it depart, never to return.
April. Month of dust and lies.
I want a world where men live free from fear and coercion.
An anxious heart is like a string that’s out of tune.
There is no alternative to action, and that requires faith. The issue is how we are to mold for ourselves a belief system that is worthy of life.
Run after truth until you’re breathless. Accept the pain involved in re-creating yourself afresh. These ideas will take a life to comprehend, a hard one interspersed with drunken moments.