Interviewer: What would you say to a woman in this country who assumes she is no longer oppressed, who believes women's liberation has been achieved? el Saadawi: Well I would think she is blind. Like many people who are blind to gender problems, to class problems, to international problems. She's blind to what's happening to her.

There is not a revolution that succe Saudi Arabia paid $7 billion for the Salafists to come, and the United States and Israel are pouring a lot of money into Egypt. Why? To divide the country by religion.

Everybody has to die, Firdaus. I will die, and you will die. The important thing is how to live until you die.

When my second husband shouted, 'Me or your writing!' I replied, 'My writing.' We separated.

When you are intelligent and beautiful you face a lot of problems. If you are beautiful and stupid then it's easy.

Motherhood goes back in history to a time when a father had no way of knowing his children. Fatherhood only became known when class patriarchal society had established itself and imposed monogamous marriage on women. Motherhood is like sun and rain and plants, a quality and product of nature which does not require laws or systems in order to exist.

Language, journalism, food, sex. All is politics. Even innocent love stories are politics. ... There is no such thing as neutrality.