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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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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
Twists
Purpose
Managed
Power
Sole
Earth
Novels
Book
Sent
Retrieve
Many
Brilliant
Oliver
Writing
Although
Dickens
Believe
Twist
Never
Novel

More quotes by Henning Mankell

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The evil always comes from details.
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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.
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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.
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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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Police work wouldn't be possible without coffee.
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 can still remember the miraculous feeling of writing a sentence, then more sentences, telling a story. The first thing I wrote was a one-page summary of Robinson Crusoe and I am so sorry I do not have it any more it was at that moment I became an author.
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.
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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
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For me Oliver Twist is a political novel. It is a furious critique of the treatment of orphans and poor children who were forced to spend their early lives in ghastly institutions.
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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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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You think you know everything about a person, but the truth often comes as a surprise.
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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The stories I create are never as awful as reality.
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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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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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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When someone asks me to list the 10 best novels ever written, I always refuse to answer.
Henning Mankell