هل 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.
From the novel Menorahs and Minarets · Chapter 29
Words of a narrator or a character belong to the novel's world, not to the author's personal views.