Nawal El Saadawi Quotes

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

Nobody makes me do anything I don't want to do. It's my decision. So the biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy. And that's how I have to deal with it.

The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.

The tragedy of civil wars in countries like Angola and Mozambique is that they left many civilians maimed. Poverty is the reason HIV/AIDS spread so rapidly in the African townships and slums. Poverty is the real killer.

Clay is a good enough fighter, but it's unfortunate that he's a Black Muslim. A champion should represent all sects, not one.

I look at an ant and see myself: a native South African, endowed with a strength much greater than my size, so I might cope with the weight of racism that crushes my spirit.

You sound like a hillbilly; We want folk singers here.

I am what I am: an individual, unique and different, with a lineal history of an ancestral promptings and urgings, a history of dreams, desires, and of special experiences, of all of which I am the sum total.

I couldn't tell you because even I don't know who I am yet.

The Third World deserves freedom of speech just like everyone else. We want to fight the battle to say what we want, whether to be serious or just make fun of ourselves. That's what "Worldtown" is about, that's what "Paper Planes" is about. It's what people in the third world live through.

I am not ashamed of my past and don't intend to be ashamed of it.

The Rose Vol. 2 (2005)

Me Against the World (1995)

I never fucked a 10, but one night I fucked 5 twos!

You just mentioned Bob Marley —  I can remember when I was in college, listening — and not agreeing with his whole philosophy necessarily, but raising my awareness of how people outside of our country were thinking about the struggles for jobs and dignity, and freedom.

I trapped my breath in the bellows of my throat, and a lamp blazed up inside, showing me who I really was. I crossed the darkness holding fast to that lamp.