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“إحنا فى زمن المسخ”
― علاء الأسواني, عمارة يعقوبيان

“الحياة أكثر تعقيدا, والشر موجود في أطيب الناس وأقربهم الينا..”
― علاء الأسواني, The Yacoubian Building

“هل يتحقق ما نريده حتما اذا ما رغبنا فيه بالقوة الكافية؟؟”
― علاء الأسواني, The Yacoubian Building

“If you can't find good in your own country, you won't find it anywhere else.”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“الواحد ممكن يقضى عمره كله يبحث عن الشخص المناسب ولما يلاقيه يضيع منه ..”
― علاء الأسواني, The Yacoubian Building

“البلد دى مش بلدنا يا طه. دى بلد اللى معه فلوس.”
― علاء الأسواني, The Yacoubian Building

“Education, medical treatment, and work are the natural rights of every citizen in the world.”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“حاجات كتير كان لازم أعملها فى حياتى وما علمتهاش.”
― علاء الأسواني, The Yacoubian Building

“She had lost her compassion for people and a thick crust of indifference had formed around her feelings - that disgust that afflicts the exhausted, the frustrated, and the perverted and prevents them from sympathizing with others.”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“الناس ساذجة فاهمين إننا بنزور الانتخابات.. أبدا.. كل الحكاية إننا دارسين نفسية الشعب المصري كويس.. المصريين ربنا خلقهم في ظل الحكومة.. لا يمكن لأي مصري يخالف حكومته.. فيه شعوب طبعها تثور و تتمرد إنما المصري طول عمره يطاطي لأجل ياكل العيش.. الكلام ده مكتوب في التاريخ، الشعب المصري أسهل شعب ينحكم في الدنيا.. أول ما تأخذ السلطة المصريين يخضعوا لك و يتذللوا و تعمل فيهم على مزاجك.. و أي حزب في مصر لما يعمل انتخابات و هو في السلطة لازم يكسبها لأن المصري لازم يؤيد الحكومة.. ربنا خلقه كده..”
― علاء الأسواني, The Yacoubian Building

“كان سلوكهم عموماً إزاء أى شخص منحرف يتوقف على قدر محبتهم له، إذا كرهوه ثاروا عليه انتصاراً للفضيلة وتشاجروا معه بشراسة ومنعوا أولادهم من الاختلاط به، أما إذا أحبوه مثل عبد ربه فإنهم يغفرون له ويتعاملون معه باعتباره ضالاً مسكيناً ويرددون أن كل شئ قسمة ونصيب، كما أن هدايته ليست بعيدة على ربنا سبحانه وتعالى و"ياما ناس كانوا أسوأ من ذلك ثم هداهم ربنا وفتح عليهم وصاروا من أولياء الله"، هكذا كانوا يقولون ويمصمصون شفاههم ويهزون رؤوسهم بتعاطف ..”
― علاء الأسواني, The Yacoubian Building

“Everything that happened to you is a page that's been turned and is done with.”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“...he was one of the great intellectuals of the 1940s who completed
their higher studies in the West and returned to their country to
apply what they had learned there—lock, stock, and barrel—within
Egyptian academia. For people like them, “progress�� and “the West��
were virtually synonymous, with all that that entailed by way of positive
and negative behavior. They all had the same reverence for the
great Western values—democracy, freedom, justice, hard work, and
equality. At the same time, they had the same ignorance of the nation’s
heritage and contempt for its customs and traditions, which they considered
shackles pulling us toward Backwardness from which it was
our duty to free ourselves so that the Renaissance could be achieved.”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“I
lived through beautiful times, Busayna. It was a different age. Cairo
was like Europe. It was clean and smart and the people were well
mannered and respectable and everyone knew his place exactly. I was
different too. I had my station in life, my money, all my friends were of
a certain niveau, I had my special places where I would spend the
evening—the Automobile Club, the Club Muhammad Ali, the Gezira
Club. What times! Every night was filled with laughter and parties and
drinking and singing. There were lots of foreigners in Cairo. Most of
the people living downtown were foreigners, until Abd el Nasser threw
them out in 1956.��
“Why did he throw them out?��
“He threw the Jews out first, then the rest of the foreigners got
scared and left. By the way, what’s your opinion of Abd el Nasser?��
“I was born after he died. I don’t know. Some people say he was a
hero and others say he was a criminal.��
“Abd el Nasser was the worst ruler in the whole history of Egypt.
He ruined the country and brought us defeat and poverty. The damage
he did to the Egyptian character will take years to repair. Abd el Nasser
taught the Egyptians to be cowards, opportunists, and hypocrites.��
“So why do people love him?��
“Who says people love him?��
“Lots of people that I know love him.��
“Anyone who loves Abd el Nasser is either an ignoramus or did
well out of him. The Free Officers were a bunch of kids from the dregs
of society, destitutes and sons of destitutes. Nahhas Basha was a good
man and he cared about the poor. He allowed them to join the Military
College and the result was that they made the coup of 1952. They ruled
Egypt and they robbed it and looted it and made millions. Of course
they have to love Abd el Nasser; he was the boss of their gang.”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“If you can’t find good in your own country, you won’t find it anywhere
�������.��
The words slipped out from Zaki Bey, but he felt that they were ungracious
so he smiled to lessen their impact on Busayna, who had
stood up and was saying bitterly, “You don’t understand because
you’re well-off. When you’ve stood for two hours at the bus stop or
taken three different buses and had to go through hell every day just to
get home, when your house has collapsed and the government has left
you sitting with your children in a tent on the street, when the police
officer has insulted you and beaten you just because you’re on a
minibus at night, when you’ve spent the whole day going around the
shops looking for work and there isn’t any, when you’re a fine sturdy
young man with an education and all you have in your pockets is a
pound, or sometimes nothing at all, then you’ll know why we hate
Egypt.”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“Sheikh Bilal had taken
him aside the day before the wedding and spoken to him of marriage
and his wife’s rights in the Law, stressing to him that there was nothing
for a Muslim to feel shy about in marrying a woman who was not a
virgin and that a Muslim woman’s previous marriage ought not to be a
weak point that her new husband could exploit against her. He said
sarcastically, “The secularists accuse us of puritanism and rigidity,
even while they suffer from innumerable neuroses. You’ll find that if
one of them marries a woman who was previously married, the
thought of her first husband will haunt him and he may treat her
badly, as though punishing her for her legitimate marriage. Islam has
no such complexes.”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“I am according to my slave's expectations of me: if good, then good, and if bad, then bad.”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“She represents the beauty of the common people in all its vulgarity and provocativeness.”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“لماذا تندهشين من الشر؟..أنت تفكرين كالأطفال:تتخيلين الطيبين مبتسمين وبشوشين والأشرار وجوههم قبيحة وحواجبهم غليظة مشعثة..الحياة أكثر تعقيدا من ذلك بكثير،الشر موجود في أطيب الناس وأقربهم إلينا..”
― علاء الأسواني, The Yacoubian Building

“بص يا طه..أنا صحيح أصغر منك بسنة لكني اشتغلت والشغل علمني.البلد دي مش بلدنا يا طه.دي بلد اللي معاه فلوس.لو كان معاك عشرين ألف جنيه ودفعتهم رشوة حد كان سألك عن شغلة أبوك..؟!اعمل فلوس يا طه تكسب كل حاجة أما لو فضلت فقير حتندهس دهس..”
― علاء الأسواني, The Yacoubian Building

“He had worked out long ago that police officers evaluated a citizen on the
basis of three factors—his appearance, his occupation, and the way he
spoke; according to this assessment, a citizen in a police station would
either be treated with respect or despised and beaten.”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“Later he would ponder the relation between our extreme desire for something and our ability to realize it- was what we wanted inevitably brought about if we wanted it enough?”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“...and that spark will flash in her eyes confirming that her mind never stops working, even in the heat of passion.”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“...oh that short hair, a la garcon that evokes unfamiliar, boyish kinds of sex.”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“كانت تهاجم تصابيه ونزواته ليس بوازع من فضيلة , وإنما لأن تكالبه على الحياة بهذه الطريقة لا يلائم ما تشعر به من يأس , كانت ثورتها عليه أشبه بغضب المعزين الحزانى على رجل يقهقه في المأتم. وكان بين العجوزين أيضا كل ما يصاحب الشيخوخة من ضجر وقلة صبر وتعنت. بالإضافة الى ذلك التوتر الذي ينشأ دائما من اقتراب شخصين من بعضهما أكثر من اللازم . أن يشغل أحدهما الحمام طويلا بينما يريد الآخر استعماله , أن يرى أحدهما وجه الآخر المكفهر ساعة الاستيقاظ من النوم , أن يحتاج أحدهما الى الصمت ويصر الآخر على الحديث , مجرد وجود شخص آخر لا يفارقك ليل نهار ويحملق فيك ويقتحمك ويراجعك فيما تقول ويجلس ليأكل معك فيستفزك الصرير الذي يصدر من ضروسه أثناء المضغ ويزعجك حتى الرنين الذي يحدثه ارتطام ملعقته بالصحون.”
― علاء الأسوانى, The Yacoubian Building

“deeper insight into human nature and make them more capable of influencing others. Homosexuals also excel in professions associated with taste and beauty, such as interior decoration and clothing design; it is well known that the most famous clothes designers in the world are homosexuals, perhaps because their dual sexual nature enables them to design women’s clothes that are attractive to men and vice versa.”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“Homosexuals usually excel in professions that depend on contact with other people, such as public relations, acting, brokering, and the law. It is said that their success in these fields is attributable to their lack of that sense of shame that costs others opportunities, while their sexual lives, filled as they are with diverse and”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“you will not achieve true devotion in one go. The gihad of the soul, Taha, is the Greater Gihad, as the Messenger of God—God bless him and give him peace—called it.�� “What should I do, Master?”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“Our time-serving, traitorous rulers, servants of the Crusader West, will meet their just fates at your pure hands, cleansed for prayer, if God so wills!”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building

“Millions of Muslims humiliated and subjected to dishonor by the Zionist occupation appeal to you to restore for them their ruined self-respect. Youth of Islam, the Zionists get drunk and commit fornication with whores in the forecourt of your Aqsa Mosque!”
― Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building