Naguib Mahfouz

Never bite the hand that feeds you."

A city of silence and truth, where success and failure, murderer and victim, come together, where thieves and policemen lie side by side in peace for the first and last time.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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...