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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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Police work wouldn't be possible without coffee.
Henning Mankell
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Not having time for a person, not being able to sit in silence together with somebody, that's the same as rejecting them, as being scornful about them.
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 think my Wallander stories give a fairly good image of the world in the 1990s. I don't regret anything about that - on the contrary!
Henning Mankell
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One of the agonies of being an author is to know when to stop writing.
Henning Mankell
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Many people say I smile more in Africa than in Sweden.
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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Certainly, I know what it's like to be obsessed. I haven't always been there for my children. They could reach me, but I wasn't always there. But, you know, that's not necessarily anything to do with being a writer. I mean, a taxi driver could have the same problem... Maybe.
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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An oppressed people will always rise.
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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What annoys a person who suicides? The life itself. Boredom. Tiredness that descends on every morning when you look at yourself at the mirror.
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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When someone asks me to list the 10 best novels ever written, I always refuse to answer.
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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Go to Mozambique! As long as you don't expect to find flawless infrastructure, just go. Because this is a country where people have not quite grown accustomed to tourists. You still feel a genuineness that no longer exists in countries where tourism has been industrially developed.
Henning Mankell
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I can still remember. I was ill, and I was seven, and my father didn't want me to just read children's books. He came with Conan Doyle. I tried, and I liked it. I think the first I read was 'The Sign of the Four' 'Study in Scarlet' was the next one. Then I guess I stayed home a few extra days from school to read.
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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Many people make the mistake of confusing information with knowledge. They are not the same thing. Knowledge involves the interpretation of information. Knowledge involves listening.
Henning Mankell