Cairo Quotes

The merchants of old Cairo are honest in their dealings, and if one of them is caught cheating a customer, he is mounted on a camel with a bell in his hand and paraded about the city, ringing the bell and crying out, 'I have committed a misdemeanor and am suffering reproach. Whosoever tells a lie is rewarded with public disgrace.' The grocers, druggists, and peddlers furnish sacks for everything they sell, whether glass, pottery, or papers; therefore, there is no need for shoppers to take their own bags with them

My sister-in-law works for a group that supports orphanages in Cairo. She and her colleagues take care of children left behind by circumstances beyond their control. They feed these children, clothe them, and teach them to read.

My parents left Libya in 1979, escaping political repression, and settled in Cairo. I was nine.

The script for what would eventually become my first graphic novel, 'Cairo,' sort of came to me in kind of a bolt of lightning within 24 hours of having moved to that city. Just a jumble of characters and narratives and interesting things that I was seeing and experiencing for the first time.

My family settled in Cairo in 1980. I was nine. I missed Libya terribly, but I also took to Cairo. I perfected the accent. People assumed I was Egyptian.

I shall not return to Constantinople until I have conquered Egypt!

The Maghribis have just founded a town outside Fustat called Cairo. Jawhar, the Maghribis general, staked it out on his arrival in Egypt for his army, stores, and retinue. It now has different quarters and markets, as well as places for breeding livestock, facilities such as baths and inns, and even well-built palaces and useful facilities. Jawhar has surrounded it with a strong, high wall, which encloses a space three times greater than the built-up area: these are parks kept in reserve for the livestock in case of outside attack. Inside are offices for the administrators of Egypt, and a beautiful elegant congregational mosque tended by an abundance of clerics and muezzins.

Yes,' Spade growled. 'And when you're slapped you'll take it and like it.' He released Cairo's wrist and with a thick open hand struck the side of his face three times savagely.

I spent some time in Cairo, and you see these Coptic Christians and Muslims holding hands. They got a rich history together of working together and cohabitating. You couldn't pay to see that in America.

Egypt is a large, complex, very important country.

I think the first time I watched 'Aladdin' was when I was still in Egypt, because I was born in Cairo.

Love the life you have been given. And be humbled by it. It is not to be despised.

Of all the places I've visited in my life, Egypt has been the most fascinating. I've explored almost the whole country: Cairo and the Pyramids, Alexandria, the temples of Luxor and Karnak, the Valleys of the Kings and the Queens and the Nobles.

My dad was a diplomat and after living in America, where I was born, he was posted to Cairo.

'Butterfly Mosque' came out of the emails I wrote to family and friends back home after moving to Egypt.

Those who are fighting free speech in the name of respect for their beliefs school on the beliefs of others and making clearly known. Newspapers in Tehran, Damascus and Cairo overflow with vengeful characters caricatures shamelessly demonizing orthodox Jews and the Talmud

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.

Egypt is full of dreams, mysteries, memories.

Those small brown men who sell their sisters on the streets of Cairo were once the mighty Egyptians.

There were no less than twenty thousand shops in Cairo, all of which belong to the sultan (al-Mustansir). Many shops are rented for as much as ten dinars a month, and none for less than two. There is no end of caravanserais, bathhouses and other public buildings - all property of the sultan, for no one owns any property except houses and what he himself builds….In the midst of the houses in the city are gardens and orchards watered by wells. In the sultan's harem are the most beautiful gardens imaginable. Water-wheels have been constructed to irrigate these gardens. There are trees planted and pleasure parks built even on the roofs …. All the houses of Cairo are built separate one from another, so that no one's trees or outbuildings are against anyone else's walls. Cairo has four cathedral mosques where men pray on Fridays.

The embassy in Cairo put out a statement after their grounds had been breached. ... An apology for America's values is never the right course. ... The statement that came from the administration was - was a statement which is akin to apology and I think was a - a severe miscalculation.

My father, the political dissident Jaballa Matar, disappeared from his home in Cairo in March 1990.

In 1491 the Inka ruled the greatest empire on earth. Bigger than Ming Dynasty China, bigger than Ivan the Great’s expanding Russia, bigger than Songhay in the Sahel or powerful Great Zimbabwe in the West Africa tablelands, bigger than the cresting Ottoman Empire, bigger than the Triple Alliance (as the Aztec empire is more precisely known), bigger by far than any European state, the Inka dominion extended over a staggering thirty-two degrees of latitude—as if a single power held sway from St. Petersburg to Cairo.

The madrasas colleges of Cairo cannot be counted for multitude.

Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready. Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?