I accepted the interviews and encounters that had to be held with the media, but I would have preferred to work in peace.

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

As the tension eases, we must look in the direction of agriculture, industry and education as our final goals, and toward democracy under Mr Mubarak.

Literature should be more revolutionary than revolutions themselves; writers must find the means to continue to be critical of the negative elements in the sociopolitical reality.

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

Fear does not prevent death. It prevents life.

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.