We see our homeland more clearly when we are away from it than when we are in it.

I never stopped writing. I started writing when I was twelve years of age. And I was writing all the time. But nothing was translated until thirty years after I started writing, when The Hidden Face of Eve was translated in 1980.

We cannot be liberated as women in a society built on class oppression or gender oppression or religious oppression.

In history, the millions win; that is democracy.

Women are half the society. You cannot have a revolution without women. You cannot have democracy without women. You cannot have equality without women. You can't have anything without women.

First of all, I hated the medical profession. Medical education in Egypt was taken from the British, French, colonial educational system. And it's very, very lacking - there is no sexology. I never read the word clitoris in any medical book when I was educated.

During the '80s I wrote Memoirs from the Women's Prison. This is one of my most important books. It came out in Arabic in '83. About my experience in prison.