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The stories I create are never as awful as reality.

Henning Mankell

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Henning Mankell
Age: 67 †
Born: 1948
Born: February 3
Died: 2015
Died: October 5
Crime Writer
Film Director
Human Rights Activist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Sthlm
Henning Georg Mankell
Awful
Create
Reality
Stories
Never

More quotes by Henning Mankell

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When I was a very young author, I knew I needed to build myself a tower outside of Europe. Like when you're a hunter, and build towers to watch the animals move. I knew I would never understand the world without that perspective. I came to Africa for that rational reason, although I love Mozambique now.
Henning Mankell
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I am not afraid of dying. I have lived longer than most people in the world. What scares me is to have a body that works but a brain that is waving goodbye. If that happens, I hope I die quickly.
Henning Mankell
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Every secret we confide in another person can be a burden to them
Henning Mankell
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Life is a flimsy branch over an abyss.
Henning Mankell
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Shakespeare is in many ways an African writer and 'Hamlet' would be seen as a very accurate historical saga about an African kingdom.
Henning Mankell
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Each person searches for the most beautiful jump which will be the final before leaving this world.
Henning Mankell
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You think you know everything about a person, but the truth often comes as a surprise.
Henning Mankell
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Children get acquainted with each other in a special way, they do not make contracts as adults, they believe each other or not. Childish friendships often end in violence. You may become an enemy all of a sudden as well as notice that you are someone's best friend.
Henning Mankell
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Have I ever written anything that has really changed something? What I believe is that you can't change anything without using art. I believe that the drops wear away the stone. I try to be part of that army.
Henning Mankell
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I am fascinated by all the new technology that creates places for us to meet in what is called cyberspace. I understand what it must have meant for the rebellions in the 19th century, especially in 1830 and 1848, when the mass circulated newspaper became so important for the spreading of information.
Henning Mankell
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I remembered her once saying that life was like your shoes. You couldn't simply expect or imagine that your shoes would fit perfectly. Shoes that pinched your feet were a fact of life.
Henning Mankell
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They pondered the importance of coffee in silence.
Henning Mankell
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I do not understand how on earth you can become a writer without seeing the world.
Henning Mankell
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It struck me as I listened to those two men that a truer nomination (name) for our species than Homo sapiens might be Homo narrans, the storytelling person. What differentiates us from animals is the fact that we can listen to other people’s dreams, fears, joys, sorrows, desires and defeats–and they in turn can listen to ours.
Henning Mankell
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Although many of his other novels are brilliant there is a power in 'Oliver Twist' that I believe Dickens never managed to retrieve. It is as if he was sent to this earth with the sole purpose of writing this book.
Henning Mankell
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Dreams can be of value even if you don’t have an opportunity to turn them into reality.
Henning Mankell
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Poverty always looks the same, no matter where you come across it. The rich can always express their opulence by varying their lives. Different houses, clothes, cars. Or thoughts, dreams. But for the poor there is nothing but compulsory grayness, the only form of expression available to poverty.
Henning Mankell
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Although I never marched through the streets shouting for Mao, I do believe that the liberation of China at the end of the 1940s was a wonderful thing and to provide its people with a billion pairs of shoes and trousers was a fantastic achievement.
Henning Mankell
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Our exile organizations have been our way of replacing the cities and villages we have lost.
Henning Mankell
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Police work wouldn't be possible without coffee.
Henning Mankell