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" One of the agonies of being an author is to know when to stop writing. "
Henning Mankell
Being
Know
Writing
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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
Believe
Achievement
End
" 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
Image
Give
Good
" I still have a photo on my wall of the greatest idol I will ever have in my life, and it's myself at eight. Because that's when the forces of imagination have the same value as the real world, when they're an instrument of survival: when my mother disappeared, and I imagined a mother. That was me at my best. "
Henning Mankell
Myself
Mother
Imagination
" I realize that Facebook today is a global success with more than 600 million users worldwide. But I also understand, maybe a bit sadly, that it is not for me. Perhaps it is because I am a bit too old? Or perhaps it is because I am more interested in exploring the epic text, which I have lived with for all my life. "
Henning Mankell
Success
Today
My Life
" 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. "
Henning Mankell
Small
Work
World
" 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
Writer
Kingdom
Historical
" 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
You
Myself
Love
" 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
Me
Reach
Know
" There is always a sacred hour in the theatre - after rehearsals and before performances, in the afternoon, between three and five o'clock. Normally the theatre is empty then, and this is a wonderful hour. "
Henning Mankell
Wonderful
Always
Empty
" Africa was the most exotic place I could conceive of - the end of the world - and I knew I would go there one day. "
Henning Mankell
Africa
Day
End
" I'm not very much of a reader really, because I find much of it very bad, very uninteresting, very speculative. "
Henning Mankell
Bad
Very
Really
" My mother did what many men do. She left. "
Henning Mankell
Mother
Men
Did
" An oppressed people will always rise. "
Henning Mankell
Always
Will
People
" When you are around 60, there are certain things that are completely terrifying. One of them is that you have made the wrong choices in life, and now it's too late to do anything about them. "
Henning Mankell
Life
You
Now
" 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. "
Henning Mankell
Life
People
Positive
" 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
Turn
Listen
Dreams
" It is obviously no secret that I earn a lot of money. But it is also no secret that I give most of it away. I don't live a luxurious life. I drive a small second-hand Fiat. I don't have to worry about money, which is itself a privilege. But I never had any anxiety that I would lose my identity. "
Henning Mankell
Life
Live
Lose
" I am a very radical person - as radical now as I was when I was younger. So my books all have in common my search for understanding of the terrible world we are living in and ways to change it. "
Henning Mankell
Change
Now
I Am
" I do not understand how on earth you can become a writer without seeing the world. "
Henning Mankell
Earth
Seeing
Understand
" I work in an old tradition that goes back to the ancient Greeks. You hold a mirror to crime to see what's happening in society. I could never write a crime story just for the sake of it, because I always want to talk about certain things in society. "
Henning Mankell
Story
Work
You
" Sweden is still a very peaceful country to live in. I think that people in Britain have created this mythology about Sweden, that it's a perfect democratic society full of erotically charged girls. "
Henning Mankell
Think
Live
Peaceful
" In Africa, listening is a guiding principle. It's a principle that's been lost in the constant chatter of the Western world, where no one seems to have the time or even the desire to listen to anyone else. "
Henning Mankell
Time
Listening
Desire
" 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. "
Henning Mankell
Live
Better
Experience
" I'm quite sure Shakespeare enjoyed writing Iago much more than he did writing Othello. If you write about someone you love, what the hell are you supposed to say about that person? It's much better to have something between you and your main character that grates. "
Henning Mankell
Love
Better
Hell
" I came to Mozambique in 1986, when I first became involved with Teatro Avenida - a theatre company that stages plays concerned with political and social issues. "
Henning Mankell
Political
Theatre
Involved
" 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
Goodbye
I Am
Hope
" Too often we learn everything about how an African dies, but nothing about how he lives. But they learn and live and love and dream just like we do. That's not to say there are not a hell of a lot of problems in Africa. But there is also another side to that story. "
Henning Mankell
Story
Love
Hell
" I decided to become an author when my grandmother taught me to write, when I was six. I can still recall the sensation of being able to turn words into stories. It was a miracle. "
Henning Mankell
Grandmother
Turn
Words
" I love Sherlock Holmes. There's still an awful lot to steal from Conan Doyle. But within a tradition you can work in many different ways. "
Henning Mankell
Work
You
Tradition
" My father thought, and now I think too, that the system of democracy is entirely based upon the system of justice. If we do not have a system of justice that people believe in, the system of democracy will fail. "
Henning Mankell
Democracy
People
Father