Alifa Rifaat > Quotes

“Daughter, I’m not crying now because I’m fed up or regret that the Lord created me a woman. No, it’s not that. It’s just that I’m sad about my life and my youth that have come and gone without my knowing how to live them really and truly as a woman.
knowing how to live them really and truly as a woman.”
― Alifa Rifaat

“In an instant between sleep and wakefulness, an instant outside the bounds of time, that gave the sensation of being eternal, the sounds of night, like slippery fishes passing through the mesh of a net, registered themselves on Zennouba's hearing, filtering gradually into her awakening consciousness:”
― Alifa Rifaat

“I rushed back to the house and upstairs to mourn the rabbit with silent tears. I blamed myself for not having called out and pleaded with her for its life. It was my first felt encounter with death and it provided me with the bitter knowledge that for grown-ups there were, as it were, degrees of death, one for humans and another for animals. Later in life I was to discover that many of us also think in terms of degrees of death where our fellow mates were concerned, but that only few few of us become capable of viewing our own death with equanimity”
― Alifa Rifaat, Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories

“Only half-aware of the movements of his body, she turned her head to one side and stared up at the ceiling, where she noticed a spider's web.”
― Alifa Rifaat, Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories