..with a click, my novel would be born; it would come out into the light suddenly transformed from the hypothetical text composed in my imagination into finished, tangible thing with a real and independent existence. The moment of clicking on the print button always gave rise to strange and powerful ambivalence--a combination of self-satisfaction, gloom and anxiety. Self-satisfaction for having finished writing the book. Gloom because taking my leave of the characters has the same effect on me as when a group of friends have to depart. And anxiety, perhaps because I am on the verge of delivering up into other people's hands something that I treasure. Alaa Al Aswany
It's like I get into a roller coaster, and sit there while it goes up and down and upside down and sometimes I get thrown out and I hit my head, but I crawl back in again and the moment I'm back in, it just...
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C. Joybell C.
Blessed are the weird people: poets, misfits, writersmystics, painters, troubadoursfor they teach us to see the world through different eyes.
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Jacob Nordby
If everyone could be a successful and rich author, there would be no point in working so hard. Where is the fun in that?
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L.A. Jones
I hope I don't write TOO many books! When I look at authors who have written too many books, I wonder to myself "When did they live?" I certainly want to write BECAUSE I live! I know I don't want to write in order to...
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C. Joybell C.
I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this., New York Times, April 19, 1992]
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Cormac McCarthy
More Quotes By Alaa Al Aswany
The writer of fiction is not a scholar but an artist impacted emotionally by characters from life, who then strives to present these in his works. These characters present us with human truth but do not necessarily represent social truth.
It became clear to her that all men, however respectable in appearance and however elevated their position in society, were utter weaklings in front of a beautiful woman. - The Yacoubian Building, p. 42
Illiteracy does not impede the practice of democracy, as witnessed by the success of democracy in India despite the high illiteracy rate. One doesn't need a university diploma to realize that the ruler is oppressive and corrupt. On the other hand, to eradicate illiteracy requires...
A racist is just an ignorant man afraid of people who are different from him.
Egyptians are like camels: they can put up with beatings, humiliation and starvation for a long time but when they rebel they do so suddenly and with a force that is impossible to control.
