The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything....The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead...In any case, it seems to me that all over the world people nowadays prefer to judge rather than ask so that the voice of the novel can hardly be heard over the noisy foolishness of human certainties
Milan Kundera in Radwa Ashour (1 November 2007). Siraaj: An Arab Tale. University of Texas Press. p. xvi. ISBN 978-0-292-71752-7.