The Man Who Smiled Quotes

“[...] Alati on lihtsam jälgida nupukalt konstrueeritud valet kui leida ähmast tõde.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“life is made up of a series of rites of passage of whose existence we are unaware until we find ourselves in the midst of them.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“Friendship often develops out of a meeting at which nobody had expected any such miracle to happen. But friendship is a miracle, that’s something life has taught me.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“Christians, according to this Italian thinker, say the highest level of happiness is to be attained through humility, self-denial, and contempt for everything human. Heathens, on the other hand, see the highest level of goodness in mental greatness, bodily strength, and all the qualities that make human beings frightening. Wise words that I always do my best to live up to.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“Does he sometimes change tack to create even more confusion? Uncertainty can be a hiding place, Wallander thought. The world is allowed to know he exists, but never where he is.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“It might just have been the momentary and irresistible weariness of the ever-busy world traveler, the barely discernible weakness of a man who no longer had the strength to put on a polite front while allowing himself to be questioned by this insignificant police officer from Ystad.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“We must never forget that no matter how many resources we put into this, he will be able to send yet more troops into battle. It’s always easier to close a door than it is to open it again. It’s always easier to maintain a cleverly constructed lie than it is to find an unclear truth.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“Unless she was an exceptional person, she would experience an unbroken sequence of disappointments, and very little joy.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“Wallander sat bolt upright. His instinct told him he had hit upon a pattern, or rather, a non-pattern, a pattern falsified so that the true facts would not come to light.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“Winter is almost upon us, he thought. Snow and storms and chaos. And I am a police officer again. Life tosses us all hither and thither. Is there anything we can truly decide for ourselves?”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“Patience, he would have said. When stones start rolling down a slope, it’s important not to start running after them right away. Stay where you are and watch them rolling, see where they come to a stop. That’s what he would have said.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“There was something in Björk’s behavior that was typical of the peasant’s awe of those in power.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“Nothing has been stolen and there is no sign of passions such as hatred or jealousy running high.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“My shortcomings are no excuse for others acting in that way,” Wallander said. “Not my superior in any case.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“Wallander smiled to hear how he too used to speak, before his move to Ystad had changed his dialect.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“That is about as close as one can get to the greatest loneliness of all, he thought. Being all alone in the world. The final human being, forgotten about.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“Its main responsibility is health spending, but it oversees a lot of other things as well. Education, culture, and so on.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“They say there’s a crime behind every fortune.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“I’m a man who doesn’t laugh enough, he thought. Without my noticing, middle age has marooned me on a coast with too many dangerous submerged rocks.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“Nobody can ask to have their life declared invalid, and demand that the dice be thrown afresh. There is no going back.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“Something inside me has filled up to the brim, and soon the walls will burst.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“Sometimes, in my darkest moments, I’m afraid it might never again obey me, but I haven’t given up hope altogether.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“I feel as if part of my soul has been replaced by an artificial limb,” he wrote. “It still doesn’t do what I want it to do.”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“It is not so much the sight of immorality of the great that is to be feared as that of immorality leading to greatness. ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE Democracy in America”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“Establishing the line between a lie and a fact, the real truth, is the basis of all police work. - Kurt Wallander”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“Indirect questions can produce direct answers. - Anne-Brit Höglund”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“There was always somebody at the top who dictated the terms, specifically or by implication, that those below had to accept. - Kurt Wallander”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“We have to see things simply, but without simplifying. - Rydberg”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“You have to preserve your dignity. And your place in line . Otherwise they walk all over you. - Wallanders’ father”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled

“Perhaps tranquility is what distinguishes the environment in which wealthy people live, he thought. - Kurt Wallander”
― Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled