Cairo Quotes

“When you have half of Caironese in slums, when you don't have clean water, when you don't have a sewer system, when you don't have electricity, and on top of that you live under one of the most repressive regimes right now... Well, put all that together, and it's a ticking bomb. It's not of a question of threat; it is question of looking around at the present environment and making a rational prognosis.”
― Mohamed ElBaradei

“Love the life you have been given. And be humbled by it. It is not to be despised.”
― G. Willow Wilson

“إذا إنزكمت القاهرة عطست بغداد و سعلت الدار البيضاء و دعت لنا بالشفاء الرياض”
― أنيس منصور, قل لي يا أستاذ

“Egyptians undergo an odd personality change behind the wheel of a car. In every other setting, aggression and impatience are frowned upon. The unofficial Egyptian anthem "Bokra, Insha'allah, Malesh" (Tomorrow, God Willing, Never Mind) isn't just an excuse for laziness. In a society requiring millennial patience, it is also a social code dictating that no one make too much of a fuss about things. But put an Egyptian in the driver's seat and he shows all the calm and consideration of a hooded swordsman delivering Islamic justice.”
― Tony Horwitz, Baghdad Without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia

“I was born in a slum, but the slum wasn't born in me.”
― Jesse Jackson

“Clarice, the glorious city, has a tormented history. Several times it decayed, then burgeoned again, always keeping the first Clarice as an unparalleled model of every splendor, compared to which the city’s present state can only cause more sighs at every fading of the stars.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

“من أهم صفات القاهرة أنها مدينة بلا أرصفة .. أنها مدينة تدعو الناس إلى أن يتحولوا إلى أبراصا تمشي على الجدران”
― أنيس منصور, معذبون فى كل أرض

“Each new Clarice, compact as a living body with its smells and its breath, shows off, like a gem, what remains of the ancient Clarices, fragmentary and dead.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

“The difference was principally in the invisible places toward which their respective hearts were turned. They dreamed of Cairo with its autonomous government, its army, its newspapers and its cinema, while he, facing in the same direction, dreamed just a little beyond Cairo, across the Bhar El Hamar to Mecca. They thought in terms of grievances, censorship, petitions and reforms; he, like any good Moslem who knows only the tenets of his religion, in terms of destiny and divine justice. If the word 'independence' was uttered, they saw platoons of Moslem soldiers marching through streets were all the signs were written in Arabic script, they saw factories and power plants rising from the fields; he saw skies of flame, the wings of avenging angels, and total destruction.”
― Paul Bowles, The Spider's House

“إذا كانت القاهرة مدينة الألف مئذنة فهي مدينة الرصيف الواحد”
― أنيس منصور, معذبون فى كل أرض

“There is a misconception held by many Egyptian professionals, especially engineers, that informal housing is haphazardly constructed and liable to collapse. However, such precarious housing is almost unknown in informal areas. Since informal housing is overwhelmingly owner-built without use of formal contractors, it is in the owner’s own best interest to ensure that care is taken in construction. In fact, one of the main features of informal housing construction is its high structural quality, reflecting the substantial financial resources and tremendous efforts that owners devote to these buildings. It is worth noting that in the 1992 earthquake in Cairo, practically all building collapses and the resulting fatalities occurred not in informal areas, but either in dilapidated historic parts of the city or informal areas…where apartment blocks had been constructed by (sometimes) unscrupulous developers and contractors.”
― David Sims, Understanding Cairo: The Logic of a City Out of Control

“The three of them sat there - A Ministry agent, a half-djinn, and a cat (likely), staring out past the balcony to the sleeping city they somehow had to find a way to save.”
― P. Djèlí Clark, A Master of Djinn

“General sentiment, had a poll been taken, was that eventually the negative media would die down, Egypt's head of antiquities would return to Cairo, and St. Louis would enjoy her treasure. But treasures sometimes have a higher price than their acquisition cost.”
― Michele Bonnell, Tunnels, Cappuccino, And A Heist

“At the beginning, I thought the best Islamic work was in Spain - the mosque in Cordoba, the Alhambra in Granada. But as I learned more, my ideas shifted. I traveled to Egypt, and to the Middle East many times.I found the most wonderful examples of Islamic work in Cairo, it turns out. I'd visited mosques there before, but I didn't see them with the same eye as I did this time. They truly said something to me about Islamic architecture.”
― I. M. Pei

“Cairo is in a state of becoming… We just don't know what it's becoming yet.”
― Daniel Joseph Monti, Michael Ian Borer, Lyn C. Macgregor

“You’re late, asshole!” he said cheerfully. He tried to snatch the six-pack out of Cheyenne’s hands but, being shorter by at least half a foot, ended up jumping in the air, his limbs flailing in an exaggerated manner.”
― Melissa Noël, Jezebel Loves Candy

“John Murphy alifika Moscow tarehe 1/11/1992 saa 11 alfajiri akitokea Cairo, Misri. Wakati huo Moscow kulikuwa na baridi sana. Teksi yake ilipofika Teatralny Proezd, upande wa kusini wa Hoteli ya Metropol – karibu na mojawapo ya minara ya mwanzo ya Kitay-gorod, kitovu kikuu cha biashara cha Moscow ya kale – kwa matatizo ya injini; magaidi wanne, waliokuwa wakimfuatilia kwa gari aina ya Bentley Continental S nyeusi – iliyokuwa na namba za kitemi za B 001 BB 77 RUS mali ya Kiongozi wa CS-Moscow Dmitri Olegushka – toka Uwanja wa Ndege wa Sheremetyevo II wa kaskazini-magharibi mwa jiji la Moscow, waliendelea mbele na kusimama mkabala na Jumba la Maonyesho ya Tamthilia la Bolshoy; kisha wawili kati yao wakashuka na kuingia ndani ya kioski, wawili wakibaki ndani ya gari kuhakikisha John Murphy hawapotei. Magaidi hao wa CS-Moscow, Tawi la Kolonia Santita la Urusi na nchi zote za Ulaya ya Mashariki na baadhi ya nchi za Ulaya ya Kusini, walijua Murphy alishawahisi.”
― Enock Maregesi

“Cairo is one of the greatest storehouses of human achievement on earth, ranging from the pharaonic through the Christian and Islamic periods to the Belle Epoque.”
― Michael Haag, Cadogan Guide Cairo, Luxor and Aswan

“Cairo is an exploding modern metropolis which nevertheless preserves within its heart the finest medieval city in the world...”
― Michael Haag, Cadogan Guide Cairo, Luxor and Aswan

“He spoke in a low, threatening voice, appearing to be in some sort of a trance. "Anyone who shall interfere with my obligation as the Keeper of the Sacred Spa will be judged by Isis and he shall cease to enjoy the bounties of this life and the one beyond" Those beautiful eyes were now a menacing green.”
― Kate McVaugh, The Curse Breaker of Cairo

“There’s nothing more difficult than making decisions in Cairo, since it’s Cairo that usually makes decisions for you. How to live your life. Where you can have relationships and when they can end. When you can eat, how many years of your life will be wasted stuck in traffic. Your chance of getting cancer, the precise timing in your getting hit by a car, the amount of filth in the food you’re forced to eat from the street. The total number of dogs in your life that chase you during the nighttime. You are a slave to this city. The only way to win her over is to sell her soul in a contact written with blood fresh from your veins.”
― Ahmed Naji, استخدام الحياة