"What makes us decide to run away? I remember my own flight on 18 January 1960…. . A calm ordinary winter, not to be compared with that eighteen years earlier. But it seems that the sudden urge to escape may be prompted by one of those cold, grey days which makes you more than ever aware of your solitude, intensifying your feeling that a trap is about to close."

"I was always amazed when people were kind to us."

"It whispers; all is waiting here Kept safe for thee, year after year, Beautiful songs in thousands; Where hast thou been, where, where?"

"Naguib Mahfouz, an Egyptian novelist who was the first Arabic writer to receive the Nobel Prize for literature and who was often considered the greatest writer in the Arab world... lived his entire life in Cairo, which provided the inspiration and backdrop for almost all of his writing... He set most of his works in the ancient Islamic quarter of Cairo, with its mosques and serpentine alleys teeming with shopkeepers, metalsmiths, government workers, peasants, prostitutes and thieves. His vibrant novels portraying life at every level of society were often likened to those of such other writers of urban social realism as Charles Dickens, Honore de Balzac and Emile Zola."

"[Mahfouz's fiction allowed readers the] rare privilege of entering a national psychology, in a way that thousands of journalistic articles or television documentaries could not achieve."

"It's inconceivable that there should ever be an appropriate atmosphere for me to hear talk like this. You have no respect for Fahmy's memory.'""

"(Mahfouz 125)"

"(Mahfouz, 85)"

"Her anguish over the changes that had befallen her was considerable, although at first she had welcomed them as an expression of her grief. Then she had begun to wonder anxiously if she might not need her health to get through the remainder of her life.""

"(Mahfouz, 4)"

"Kamal felt like a man suddenly finds himself beneath a streetcar, after feeling completely satisfied about his safety and security.'""

"Your rebellion against religion was a sudden leap I didn't expect.'""

"What hopeless wretches we are. Our country is pitiful and so are the people. Why is it that the only time we find a little happiness is when the world is involved in a bloody war? Surely it's only the devil who has pity on us in this world."

"Some consider that such tragedies afflicting apparently blameless people are signs of revengeful justice, the wisdom of which is beyond the understanding of most people. So you will hear them say that if the bereaved father, for example, thought deeply, he would realize his loss was just a punishment for some sin either he or his forebears committed. Yet surely God is more just and merciful than to treat the innocent as the guilty..."

"In the Harafish, dreams are carried on the shoulders of ordinary people."

"He and Raifa each lived in hell, in a world of tedium."

"Kirsha thought of Hitler as the world's greatest bully; indeed his admiration for him stemmed from what he heard of his cruelty and barbarity. He wished him success, viewing him like those mythical bravados of literature Antar and Abu Zaid."

"(Paragraph 2)"

"(Mahfouz 273)"

"(Mahfouz 366)"

"Satan finds the doors of youth an easy entrance and he slips in both secretly and openly to spread his havoc. We should do all we can do to prevent the doors of youth opening to him and keep them tightly closed. Just think of elderly men to whom age has given the keys of respectability. What would be the situation if we were to see them deliberately opening these doors and calling out in invitation to the devil?"

"He was, in fact, a veritable crouching tiger, willing to cringe and fawn until he mastered his adversary, and woe to anyone he did master! Experience had taught him that this gentleman and others like him were enemies with whom must be friendly. They were, as he put it, useful devils."

"It's fantastic the way these young men act. Why, they scarcely have a penny to their names, yet they see no reason why they shouldn't get married and populate the whole alley with children who get their food from garbage carts."

"Abbas now marveled at the strength of love, its power and its strange magic. He thought it right that God had created mankind capable of love and then left the task of developing life to the fertility of love."

"A look of vehemence appeared on the king's face. "Is it right that Pharao should yield to the will of the people?"

"He [Kirsha] was a narcotics peddler and accustomed to doing his business under a veil of darkness. Normal life had eluded him and he had become a prey to perversions."

"The barber is young and Mr. Alwan is old; the barber is of the same class as Hamida and Mr. Alwan is not. The marriage of a man like Alwan to a girl like your daughter is bound to bring problems which will make her unhappy."

"If money is the aim and object of those who squabble for power, then there is clearly no harm in money being the objective of the poor voters."

"There was a change in his heart too. He felt aversion and repulsion.""

"He has this style that goes very quickly through generations, giving little cameo portraits of people and sort of bringing it all together in a very exciting way."

"She is beauty herself, Your Majesty. She is an irresistible temptation, a desire that cannot be controlled. The philosopher Hof, who is one of her closest friends, has remarked quite correctly that the most dangerous things a man can do in his life is to set eyes upon the face of Rhadopis."

"Why do people laugh, dance in triumph, feel recklessly secure in positions of power? Why do they not remember the true place in the scheme of things and their inevitable end?"

"[....] was struck by the idea of a woman's weakness is her emotions, and that her relationships with men should be rational and calculated. Life is precious, with vast possibilities, limitless horizons. Love is nothing more than a blind beggar, creeping around the alleyways."

"It is something worth picking from the thrash-can the alluring experience of the working days."

"It was amazing that in this country where people allowed emotion to guide their politics they approached love with the precision of accountants."

"Sire, after you, no one from your seed shall sit upon the throne of Egypt."

"God did not intend religion to be an exercise club."

"You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions."

"According to Islamic principles, when a man is accused of heresy, he is given the choice between repentance and punishment."

"Monra recited this prayer with an unsteady voice. His eyes flowed with hot tears that trickled down his thin and drawn cheeks. They wet his hoary beard, as he raised his aged head, looking with emotion upon the pallid face of his wife, confined to her childbed."

"My lord, our immortal philosopher Kagemni, vizier to King Huni, says that patience is man's refuge in times of despair, and his armor against misfortunes."

"Voices were blended and intermingled in a tumultuous swirl around which eddied laughter, shouts, the squeaking of doors and windows, piano and accordion music, rollicking handclaps, a policeman's bark, braying, grunts, coughs of hashish addicts and screams of drunkards, anonymous calls for help, raps of a stick, and singing by individuals and groups."

"Patience allows ministers and obedient subjects to bear great tribulations-but the greatness of kings is in overcoming calamities, not enduring them. For this reason, the gods have compensated them for their want of patience with an abundance of power."

"(Paragraph 4)"

"We walked along a street lined with gardens; on both sides were extensive fields planted with crops, prickly pears, henna trees, and a few date palms.”"

"(Paragraph 14)."

"School’s not a punishment. It’s the factory that makes useful men out of boys. Don’t you want to be like your father and brothers?”"

"I did not believe there was really any good to be had in tearing me away from the intimacy of my home”"

"(Chapters 2, Page 10)"