51 Quotes by Ahdaf Soueif

The building is rather like a medieval Castle and was established in the Sixth Century and soon afterwards, as the Moslem armies advanced Westwards from the Arabian Peninsula, somebody had the prescience to build a small Mosque in its courtyard to guard against it being burned or demolished. At the time of the Crusades it was the turn of the Monastery to protect the Mosque, and so it has been down the ages, each House of God extending its shelter to the other as opposing armies came and went.

There's a strength in that look, a wilfulness; one would almost call it defiance except that it is so good-humoured. It is the look a woman would wear - would have worn - if she asked a man, a stranger, say, to dance.

مصر أم الحضارة، تخلق نفسها في الحلم عبر القرون. تحملنا كلنا، أبناءها: الذين يبقون ويعملون من أجلها ويشكون منها، والذين يرحلون ويشتاقون لها ويلومونها بمرارة على مغادرتها

I watch and listen, helpless to help. There is no point in saying ‘This, too, shall pass.’ For a time, we do not even want it to pass. We hold on to grief, fearing that its lifting will be the final betrayal.

Tell me, if you thought a man had a tendresse for you, but he wasn't doing anything about it. And you wanted to hurry him up a little so you made a move, an unmistakable move; one that nobody could pretend had been a misunderstanding. And he - he ignored it - ignored you. What would you feel?

عندئذ فقط أدركت كيف يغمرك الشوق إلى مكان فلا تملك إلا أن تعود وتلتقط من المدينة أجزاء هنا وهناك لتشكل منها المكان الذي عرفته يوم ما. ولكن ما العمل إذا استحالت العودة؟

أحتاج إلى شريكة أسكن إليها واثقا من تعاطفها معي، أصدقها عندما ترى أني أخطأت، تزيدني قوة عندما تقول إني على حق ، شريكة أحبها و تحبني بدورها، لكني لا أرى فيما حولي سكنا و لا حبا، إنه نوع من تبادل المصالح بترخيص من الدين والمجتمع، و هذا ما لا أرضاه لنفسي

And so the very thing that should make Egypt strong - the richness and diversity of her culture - serves to divide her and make her weak.

كنت سأبقى في نطاق العالم الذي أعرفه، فأرى الأشياء من خلال عيون زملائي في الرحلة، و يتشغل عقلي بمقاومة انطباعاتهم ن فيعجز عن تكوبن فكرة تخصني