Quotes from Henning Mankell

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.

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.

I'm not very much of a reader really, because I find much of it very bad, very uninteresting, very speculative.

Police work wouldn't be possible without coffee.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Many people say I smile more in Africa than in Sweden.

Normally street children are shown in terms of the tragedy of their lives - which is true - but there's also another dimension: their wisdom, dignity and enormous capacity for survival.

Police work wouldn't be possible without coffee," Wallander said. "No work would be possible without coffee." They pondered the importance of coffee in silence.

To grow up is to wonder about things; to be grown up is to slowly forget the things you wondered about as a child.

People always leave traces. No person is without a shadow.

It was a clear, starry night, dead calm. Whenever I see a sky like that, I wish I could write music

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.

You forget what you want to remember and remember what you would prefer to forget.

He was so excessively polite that Wallendar suspected he had endured many humiliations in his life.

You think you know everything about a person, but the truth often comes as a surprise.

It's only when we can work with something that brings out our strengths that we're of any real use.