Quotes from Henning Mankell

Jos ihmisellä ei ole aikaa olla toisen kanssa, jollei hän pysty istumaan hiljaa toisen seurassa, hän hylkää, torjuu ja pilkkaa.

Where do our habits come from? he thought. What secret factory produces our habits, both good and bad? Ellen Magnusson

The Christian world had become mired in a bog of misconceptions and had tried God's patience.

There's no such thing as a murderer's face," he said. "You imagine something: a profile, a hairline, a set of the jaw. But it never matches up.

Kertomus on matka, joka ei lopu koskaan.

Burning churches associate with war. But here there are churches burning in peacetime. Can a country be engaged in an invisible war against an unseen enemy?

It's always better to have four eyes look at something than two." "I'm not so sure about that," said Wallander

Rumours don't usually get started without a reason. - Kurt Wallander

La plupart des voyages dont on rêve n'ont jamais lieu. Ou alors on les accomplit intérieurement. L'avantage, quand on emprunte ces vols intérieurs, c'est qu'on a de la place pour les jambes.

C'est comme d'attendre Dieu ou Godot, sauf qu'à la place, c'est Jansson qui arrive.

There are evil circumstances and environments, not evil per se. But here I sense the actions of a truly darkened mind. Wallander reached for Svedberg's pocket calendar

I couldn't for the life of me understand why I should stop communicating with old friends just because they were dead.

in the end it comes down to a who and a why. Only one who. And one lone why.

After all, the only thing we have left is friends. You can say that they are the last fortress to be defended.

It is good to have a goal. You should hold on to it. People who have lost sight of their goal often begin to live in a careless manner.

They stopped in front of a two-storey brick building quintessentially Swedish, Linda thought. Wherever you go in this country the houses all look the same. The central square in Vasteras could be replaced withthe one in Orebro, this Skurup apartment building could as easily be in Sollentuna.

The wonderful Mozambican people have endured tremendous misery without losing their dignity and their positive outlook on life. Moreover, they have not lost their will to progress and develop. Mozambique is a country where the people never surrendered.

I live with one foot in the sand and one in the snow. There's European egocentricity, and the African opposite. I normally say that my African experience has made me a better European.

Shakespeare is in many ways an African writer and 'Hamlet' would be seen as a very accurate historical saga about an African kingdom.

Well, I believe that life is very complicated. And in a way, the only way you can show life in a truthful way is to show how complicated it is as an individual, but also your relation between a complicated life and the complications you have inside you.

The fundamental driving force for me is to create a change in the world we live in... It is about exploitation, plundering and degradation. I have a small possibility to participate in the resistance. Most of the things that I do are part of a resistance, a form of solidarity work.

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.

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.

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.