Henning Mankell Quotes

“The Winter of the Dog is a winter Joel will never forget. It’s then that he begins to understand that he’s himself, and nobody else. But he grows up, he grows older, he becomes thirteen.”

“To grow up is to wonder about things; to be grown up is to slowly forget the things you wondered about as a child. He has realized this. And he doesn’t want to become a grown-up like that.”

“They live together in that house, Joel Gustafson and his father. And both of them dream, in their different ways, about Joel’s mum, Jenny, who simply vanished one day. Packed a suitcase and went away.”

“Winter always came creeping up on you when you least expected it. Joel had decided last autumn that he would never allow that to happen again. Before going to bed, he would make up his mind whether or not it would start snowing during the night.”

“All those years, since Jenny had left, Joel had been his own mother. He’d never had any difficulty knowing what was best for himself.”

“It was as if a cold wind had blown right through him. He didn’t want a dad with a hunched back and unshaven cheeks.”

“When Joel emerged into the street, he was still embarrassed. He didn’t want to go shopping anymore. He didn’t want to be his own mother. But he did want revenge.”

“New Year’s resolutions were not things to be taken lightly. It seemed to Joel that a New Year’s resolution unkept might turn out to be a New Year’s threat. Time was up at midnight. The sands of time had run out.”

“I hereby promise faithfully to live to be a hundred. In order to do that, I must toughen up. I shall start on that this year. I shall learn how to tolerate both cold and heat.”

″... there was a little Arabian carpet that Samuel had bought ages ago in some Mediterranean port or other. It was not bigger than a doormat. But when Joel was a little lad, Samuel had told him stories about its magical properties.”