Quicksand Quotes

“I am constantly reminded that we human beings are basically storytellers. More homo narrans than Homo sapiens. We see ourselves in others' stories. Every genuine work of art contains a small fragment of glass from a mirror.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“He dedicado mucho tiempo de mi vida a los crímenes y a las investigaciones de los mismos. Mi planteamiento es que el mal siempre es fruto de las circunstancias, nunca es congénito. He escrito sobre crímenes porque ilustran mejor que ninguna otra cosa las contradicciones que constituyen la base de la vida humana.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“Coger un libro y perderme en el texto en los momentos difíciles ha sido siempre mi modo de buscar alivio, consuelo o, al menos, un respiro. Cuando los asuntos amorosos se torcían, echaba mano de un libro. Como consuelo después de un fracaso en el trabajo teatral o con textos cuyo final se me resistía, siempre he tenido los libros. Como linimento, pero más aún como instrumentos para desviar los pensamientos hacia otro lugar. Para hacer acopio de fuerzas.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“Las posibilidades de elección que tiene una persona permiten también que pueda atreverse a elegir de qué lado quiere estar en una sociedad injusta, que vive en tensión entre los distintos campos de fuerza de la indecencia. Ello constituye la base del hecho de que todos somos seres políticos, lo queramos o no. Vivimos en una dimensión esencialmente política, un contrato que tenemos con todos nuestros contemporáneos. Pero también un contrato cuya vigencia se extiende hasta aquellos que aún no han nacido.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“Aunque más adelante he elegido mal de vez en cuando en la vida, nunca podrá compararse con la derrota que supone no elegir en absoluto.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“En los tiempos en que vivimos, la memoria es más corta si cabe que en ninguna época anterior de la historia del hombre. Nos inundan todo el rato con una lluvia torrencial de información, pero lo sabemos, y cada vez recordamos menos. Nos revientan el cerebro simbólicamente. A medida que entra la información nueva, los recuerdos anteriores van quedando en los vertederos mentales. Si nuestro palacio de recuerdos fuera real, el nivel del agua de esa lluvia constante habría subido mucho en sus salas.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“Beethoven.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“I can understand them. For millions of people it is an unattainable luxury to be in a position to set aside time for thought. This is one of the most disturbing injustices in the world we live in: the fact that some people have time to think while others never have that opportunity. Searching for the meaning of life ought to be written into the global declarations of human rights as a matter of course.”
― Henning Mankell, Quicksand: What It Means to Be a Human Being

“Today there is still a battle going on between those who carry sacks of cement, and those who place them on their women’s heads.”
― Henning Mankell, Quicksand: What It Means to Be a Human Being

“Endless numbers of people surround you as you travel through life. Some you notice briefly, then forget. With others you make eye contact, which leads to a kind of emotional connection. And sometimes you have a conversation with some of these people.

And then you have your family, your friends, your workmates. All those who are close to you. Some move away, or your relationship cools, or they let you down in some way, and friends sometimes become enemies.

But most are simply folk who happen to live at the same time as you do. Millions of people who pay a short visit to the earth, whose stay overlaps your own.
. . .

Our real family is endless, even if we don't know who some of them were when we met them for an extremely brief moment.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“In my life I have met people who have committed horrendous and barbaric acts. I have met child soldiers who have murdered their parents or their siblings. But they were not born evil. They have carried out those brutal deeds when guns were aimed at their own heads. They have had to choose between their own lives and those they were forced to kill. What would I have done as a thirteen-year-old in that situation? The only honest answer I can give is that I don't know. I can hope that I would have acted differently, but I can't be sure.

. . .

There is always somebody who speculates and benefits from barbaric atrocities.

Barbaris always has human traits. That's what makes barbarism so inhuman.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“When I picked up a book that I had read many times before, the words opened themselves up again. What I was unable to cope with was the new and the unknown; but what I had read before, perhaps on several occasions, had the same effect as ever. I read and was able to stop thinking about my illness.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“Just as everything in my life has changed, every new morning brings with it a fresh challenge. I have to think about something other than my illness. Every morning I spend a certain amount of time asking myself how I feel, if I have any new side effects, or if it looks like being a good day. But if I am unable to thrust aside such thoughts with a real ice-hockey tackle of an effort, the battle is lost before it has even begun. Then there is a risk that resignation, suffering and fear will gain the upper hand. What course is open to me in that case? To lie down and turn my face to the wall?”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“It is so incredibly easy to take risks with the lives of other people.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“Facing up to cancer is a battle conducted on many fronts. The important thing is not to waste too much strength fighting against one's own illusions. I need all my strength in order to increase my powers of resistance in confronting the enemy that has invaded me.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“I admit that I have been surprised during recent times. People I thought might well flee into the shadows have proved to be strong enough to remain in constant touch, while others of whom I expected more have disappeared over the horizon.
But I don't pass judgment on anybody. People are who they are. One doesn't need to have many friends -- but one should be able to rely on those one has.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“The choices a human being has to make also involve deciding where one stands in an unjust society: we are all political beings, whether we like it or not. We live in a fundamentally political society, where we have a sort of contract with everybody else who lives alongside us. But it is also a contract that affects those who are not yet born.
On what grounds do we make our decisions? On what basis do we choose what we do or think or find offensive? What do we choose to do, and what to we refuse to go along with?
Having the possibility to make decisions about what to do with one's life is a great privilege. As far as most people on this planet are concerned, life is simply about survival.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“Even a short-lived visit to the bottom level of society means that one is faced with one of the most important decisions one has to make in life: what type of society do you want to help to create?

This is the question that has come to dominate my whole life.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“I learnt the most important thing you have to know: how to look after yourself. To stand by your own decisions. I didn't become an author during my time in Paris, but that wasn't important. I took the first step towards becoming a human being with self-awareness. The big step forward after that discovery I had made -- that I am myself and nobody else -- while standing outside the community centre in Sveg.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“Acknowledging one's fear of the unknown is realising what it means to be a person. Our existence is basically a tragedy. Throughout our lives we strive to increase our knowledge, our abilities, our experiences. But the bottom line is that all of that will be lost in oblivion.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“Lo repugnante puede resultar atractivo a veces. Aterrador, amenazante, pero también tentador. Como cuando nos acercamos a algo que huele mal, pero no podemos dejar de aspirar el hedor.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“En los países pobres, lo primero que pierden las mujeres es su capacidad de elegir.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“Sólo después de que florezca el roble, que es el último en primavera, despierta el fresno. Me lo imagino como el pastor de los demás árboles, vigilando que las hojas de todos estén verdes antes de florecer él.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“El dodo no sabía lo que era un enemigo. Y por eso, lógicamente, lo consideraron tonto.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“El hecho de que hayamos desarrollado la capacidad intelectual guarda relación, lógicamente, con la supervivencia. En último término, lo único que queremos es sobrevivir. Queremos vivir, no morir. Cada vez que veo a una persona rebuscando en los contenedores de basura veo ante mí ese sencillo axioma: queremos vivir. A cualquier precio.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“...para millones de personas del planeta es un lujo inaccesible poder sacar tiempo para pensar.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“Si se diera el caso de un dolor insoportable que no se pudiera paliar, podría pedir que me sedaran. Así abandonaría durmiendo esta vida y este mundo. Prefiero eso que tener que suicidarme. Es algo que no quiero hacer, por mis seres queridos. Si estuviera solo en la vida, podría ser una opción, pero hoy por hoy no lo es.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“La vida es un viaje tumultuoso entre lo que nos causa miedo y lo que nos da alegría. En el mejor de los casos logramos atesorar buenos recuerdos a lo largo de ella. Por más que, en nuestro mundo, sean demasiadas las personas que se ven obligadas a olvidar para vivir.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“Desconfío de la gente que dice que nunca tiene miedo. Creo que mienten. No tanto a mí como a sí mismos.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas

“Sin la alegría de vivir, sin el ansia de vivir, no hay seres humanos. Quienes se ven privados de su dignidad y luchan por recuperarla, luchan en la misma medida por su derecho a reconquistar las ganas de vivir. Las personas que tratan de salir de un campo de concentración o de sociedades agrarias depauperadas e ir a los prósperos países de Europa, y cuyos cadáveres arriban a las playas de Lampedusa y de Sicilia, también pretendían recuperar la alegría de vivir.”
― Henning Mankell, Arenas movedizas