تجاعيد الوجه لوحة ربانية تقصم ظهر أي رسام، وإن حاكاها ولو حرص تخونه الفرشاة.
The wrinkles of her face are a divine painting that would break any painter's back; however carefully he tried to copy them, the brush would betray him.
From the novel Menorahs and Minarets · Chapter 17
Words of a narrator or a character belong to the novel's world, not to the author's personal views.
Menorahs and Minarets
Menorahs and Minaretsفهل فينا شيء يعمل بمعزل عنا؟! شيء بصره حديد، يرى لحظة ما نرى، غير أنه يرى لنا ما لا نراه، وعندما تكون الساعة ساعة خاطر وتذكُّر يلوح لنا بما رآه..
Is there something in us that works apart from us? Something sharp-sighted, that sees the moment we see, yet sees for us what we don't see—and when the hour is one of reverie and remembrance, shows us what it saw.
Menorahs and Minarets- كانت عِشْرة يا ابني، والعشرة متهونش إلا على ولاد الحرام.
It was a shared life, my son—and a shared life is cheap only to the wicked.
Menorahs and Minaretsهل لأن تلكمُ الشوارع ليست شوارعي؟ لا حبوت عليها يومًا، ولا كان لي فيها صِبَا.. وما بال شوارع مصر وأخنانها، فكأنها الأخرى لم تعد شوارعي.. الأولى لا تعرفني، والثانية لم تعد..
Is it because those streets aren't my streets? I never crawled on them, never had a boyhood in them. And what of the streets and alleys of Egypt—as if they, too, were no longer my streets. The first don't know me; the second no longer exist.