When we live in a world that is very unjust, you have to be a dissident.

We never know the reality of things: we see only what we are aware of. It is our consciousness that determines the shape of the world around us -- its size, motion and meaning.

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

There is not a revolution that succeeded in a few months. It takes years, even decades, to fulfill its goals. I am very hopeful because I trust the revolution and feel nobody can really conquer a nation that has decided to be united and to fight, and we decided to fight. The revolution is there, inside the Egyptians by the millions.

Memory is never complete. There are always parts of it that time has amputated. Writing is a way of retrieving them, of bringing the missing parts back to it, of making it more holistic.

Solidarity between women can be a powerful force of change, and can influence future development in ways favourable not only to women but also to men.

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.