Quote by Naguib Mahfouz: “You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.”

Intelligence shows itself in knowing facts and being able to explain them. But wisdom is something different — it comes from knowing what you do not yet understand and being willing to ask about it. The person who always has answers may be well-informed; the person who keeps asking good questions is still growing.

Mahfouz completed his Cairo Trilogy in the early 1950s and published Midaq Alley and other works exploring the transformation of Egyptian society. The 1950s saw Nasser's revolution remake Egypt's political landscape. Mahfouz was writing about a culture in rapid transition and thinking carefully about what kinds of intelligence and wisdom a changing society most needed.

Egyptian novelist and the first Arab writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded in 1988. His Cairo Trilogy — Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, and Sugar Street — is considered one of the masterworks of Arabic fiction, depicting Egyptian society from the early twentieth century through the 1952 revolution.