Mahmoud Rateb

“وما زلت أحلم بمجتمع لا يستحي فيه الفقير من فقره، بل يستحي فيه الغني من التباهي بالترف”
― هبة رؤوف عزت

“عندما تعايش كل شيء وتحتمله، وعندما تنهض ثانية بعد مئات الكبوات، عندما ترفض الآمال الكاذبة، والمواساة، وتضغط على أسنانك، لكي ترى الحقيقة بشكل واضح، وبعيونك، عندما تفهم بأن المعنى الوحيد للحياة هو في النضال ضد الشر. وفي هذا النضال يمكن عمل القليل، ولكن الشيء الوحيد الذي بمقدورنا. خارجها هو السقوط الأبدي”
― علي عزت بيجوفيتش, هروبي إلى الحرية

“These days, loneliness is the new cancer—a shameful, embarrassing thing, brought upon yourself in some obscure way. A fearful, incurable thing, so horrifying that you dare not mention it; other people don’t want to hear the word spoken aloud for fear that they might too be afflicted, or that it might tempt fate into visiting a similar horror upon them.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“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