Searching Quotes

“Yes, Fouada, there's another wall in your head, one you were not born with, but which day by day was erected out of long silence.”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Searching

“Her eyes scanned the sky and the earth. What had she wanted from the start? She hadn't wanted anything, hadn't wanted to succeed or shine. She had only felt, felt there was something in her that was not in others. She would not simply live and die, and the world remain the same. She had felt something in her head, the conception of a unique idea, but how to give it birth? The idea was awake, alive and struggling, but it did not emerge, seemingly as if imprisoned by a thick wall, thicker than the bones of her skull.
She was all feelings, but how else does anything new begin?”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Searching

“I don't understand you at these moments when you are angry,' he said softly. 'Your eyes are full of buried sadness. Deep inside you there's a pain, I don't know why. You're too young to be so bitter, but it seems you've gone through harsh experiences in your life. But, Fouada, life shouldn't be so serious. Why don't you take life as it comes.'
He went over to where she was sitting and, feeling his soft, fat hand on her shoulder, she jumped to her feet and walked over to the window. He followed her, saying:
'Why waste your youth with such cares.”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Searching

“How had he become her every moment? How had a man become her whole life? How could a person consume all her attention? She didn't know how it had happened. She wasn't the sort of woman that gives her life away to anyone. Her life was too important to give to one man. Above all, her life was not her own but belonged to the world, which she wanted to change.”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Searching

“Fouada, the young child, listened without understanding a word of what he said but instead read the teacher's features as he spoke. When he said the word 'private', she didn't understand what it meant, but she felt from his expression that it meant something ugly and obscene, and she shrank into her chair, grieving for her female self.”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Searching

“Previously, it had brought her the names of famous men who had discovered things. She would bite her nails as she listened, telling herself that if she were a man she would be able to do likewise. Obscurity, she felt that these discoverers had no greater talent for discovery than she, only that they were men. Yes, a man could do things a woman could not simply because he was a man. He was not more able, but he was male, and masculinity in itself was one of the preconditions for discovery.
But here was a woman who had made a discovery, a woman like her, not a man. The obscure feelings about her ability to make a discovery became clearer and she grew more convinced that there was something that waited for her to lift a veil and discover it, something that existed, like sound and light and gases and vapours and uranium rays. Yes, something existed thar only she knew about.”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Searching

“Previously, it had brought her the names of famous men who had discovered things. She would bite her nails as she listened, telling herself that if she were a man she would be able to do likewise. Obscurity, she felt that these discoverers had no greater talent for discovery than she, only that they were men. Yes, a man could do things a woman could not simply because he was a man. He was not more able, but he was male, and masculinity in itself was one of the preconditions for discovery.”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Searching

“Previously, it hqd brought her the names of famous men who had discovered things. She would bite her nails as she listened, telling herself that if she were a man she would be able to do likewise. Obscurity, she felt that these discoverers had no greater talent for discovery than she, only that they were men. Yes, a man could do things a woman could not simply because he was a man. He was not more able, but he was male, and masculinity in itself was one of the preconditions for discovery.”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Searching

“She delighted to hear words of admiration from a man's mouth, a delicious but never surprised delight, for she was sure something in her was worthy of admiration.”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Searching

“But she stood accused and as long as she did she had relinquished all right to respect. Men's eyes took possession of her body thr way they appropriated those of prostitutes. Something pushed her. She shrank into her coat, burying her head in its wide collar.”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Searching

“She was unsure of the meaning of the word 'envy' but had inherited it as she'd inherited her nose and arms and eyes.”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Searching

“But she stood accused and as long as she did so she had relinquished all right to respect. Men's eyes took possession of her body the way they appropriated those of prostitutes. Something pushed her. She shrank into her coat, burying her head in its wide collar.”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Searching