Nawal El Saadawi

“A lot of women are afraid of loneliness, so when they see a woman who can live alone, then they think, 'Hmm, I can do that.' But you need an example, and that is why I am proud to say I have divorced three husbands.”

“When you are intelligent and beautiful you face a lot of problems. If you are beautiful and stupid then it's easy.”

“Unity is power; without unity women cannot fight for their rights anywhere.”

“War criminals in the U.S. and Israel are not punished: no international court has the courage to put them on trial.”

“In history, the millions win; that is democracy.”

“I am very much against makeup and high heels and all that we inherit as 'beauty.'”

“Education should be totally secular. I am not telling people not to believe in God, but it should be a personal matter which should be done at home.”

“My three husbands were afraid of me. I am a very powerful woman.”

“Home is where you are appreciated, safe and protected, creative, and where you are loved - not where you are put in prison.”

“Women in most countries have not achieved much, because they can't be liberated under the patriarchal, capitalist, imperialist and military system that determines the way we live now, and which is governed by power, not justice, by false democracy, not real freedom.”

“I've participated in many demonstrations since I was a child. When I was at medical college, I was fighting King Farouk, then British colonization, against Nasser, against Sadat who pushed me into prison, Mubarak who pushed me into exile. I never stopped.”

“When we live in a world that is very unjust, you have to be a dissident.”

“I don't think that people in power can be convinced by words or articles. They will never give it up by choice.”

“What makes revolutionary thought unique is its clarity and dignity, and its clear grasp of freedom and justice: simple, clear words that are understood without the need for any help from elite writers or thinkers.”

“If you do not love yourself, well, you cannot do anything well, that's my philosophy.”

“You know, I look to myself mainly as a creative writer all my life and a medical doctor.”

“The family code in Egypt is one of the worst family codes in the Arab world. Polygamy. The husband is having absolute power over the family.”

“When you have increasing power of religious groups, oppression of women increases. Women are oppressed in all religions.”

“We here in Egypt are fed up with U.S. colonialism.”

“To be creative means to connect. It's to abolish the gap between the body, the mind and the soul, between science and art, between fiction and nonfiction.”