When you spend time with your friends, what do you talk about? Those things which made an impression on you that day, that week ... I write stories the same way. Events at home, in school, at work, in the street, these are the bases for a story. Some experiences leave such a deep impression that instead of talking about them at the club I work them into a novel.

In Egypt today most people are concerned with getting bread to eat. Only some of the educated understand how democracy works.

There are no heroes in most of my stories. I look at our society with a critical eye and find nothing extraordinary in the people I see.

Fear does not prevent death. It prevents life.

The Nobel Prize has given me, for the first time in my life, the feeling that my literature could be appreciated on an international level.

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.

As for life's tragedies, our love will defeat them. Love is the most effective cure. In the crevices of disasters, happiness lies like a diamond in a mind, so let us instill in ourselves the wisdom of love.