Note.21 The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett

Note.20 The man from Beijing quoted - Henning Mankell

Truth never hurries


There's always an end. But the end is always the beginning of something else. The periods we write into our lives are always provisional, is one way or another.

The day we stop searching for the truth, which is never objective but under the best circumstances built on facts, is the day on which our system justice collapses completely.

In the world of fiction that is not only a possibility but the basic prerequisite. But even in a novel the most important details ought to be correctly presented whether they refer to the presence of birds in present-day Beijing or whether or not a judge has a sofa provided by the National Judiciary Administration in his or her office.

Note.19 When the snow fell quoted - Henning Mankell

Thoughts and dreams came from the same place. From somewhere inside yourself, from an underground cave system deep down in your head. Thinking was harder than dreaming. You would have to make an effort in order to think. Dreaming was the opposite. You couldn't do it if you made an effort.

Feelings were like doors. Sorrow had its own room, so did disappointment, and happiness. Life was like a long corridor. Every door you walked past concealed something you could choose to accept. Or reject. If you knocked on the door and went in. Always assuming you were allowed in. But doors you hoped would remain closed could also open unexpectedly.

New year wishes

Each time new year coming, people like to give wishes to each other. The New year comes but the wishes are always the same. The elders always know which wishes for each case. The kids also gradually learnt by heart all the wishes about long life, healthy and prosperity and tried to compete to get more red "lixi". I don't blame them just the more getting the wishes the more vacant, emptiness and a little bored feelings increased. I kept on wondering how people can get healthier, happier and more prosperious if they keep on being safety and staying in the same place, doing the same thing, meeting the same people. The thing people needed each every new year is the braveness the courage and daring big enough to try to experiment the new one, the one people always want to do in their whole life and at least give it a try, meet the new ones and be ready to give up the old ones, the bored ones taking and eating them days after days. Each new experiment is really the one will etch in life making life more remarkable not the tasteless safety days. Each new year coming, new experiment coming, New eagerness coming.

Messages in the bottle

Recalling childhood time I used to wish picking up a bottle with messages when strolling at the seaside. The curiosity plus imagination about some remote lands, strange people excited me each time going to the sea finding the bottles with messages. Till now I have never picked any bottle. Instead I wrote my messages, my thoughts and put in my bottle here - my blog and threw into the vast sea of web information. And like the bottles with messages in real life, the thrown one could not and should not be taken back. So am I. Some even erase theirs and took back their messages just because the "pickers-readers" protested or pissed it. I won't never do that. It can unplease people sometimes but it is mine and it's life with variety of thoughts, ideas, viewpoints so just please respect that. My messages never intend to please anyone's taste (sorry). It is just a sharing thought of the one having endless eager in reading, in experimenting new things, exploring new places and Now .. Who will pick up my bottle? Welcome.

Note.18 Italian Shoes' Quoted - Henning Mankell

When the shoe fits, you don't think about the foot.

There are two sorts of truth: trivialities, where the opposite is obviously impossible, and deep truths, which are characterised by their opposite also being a deep truth.

Love is a gentle hand which slowly pushes fate to one side.

Life is not about cut prices. Life is basically about something more important. I don't know what exactly but, nevertheless, one must believe that it is important, and that the hidden meaning is something more substantial than discount coupons and scratch cards.

We' re always being made promises. You make them yourself and you listen to others giving theirs. Politicians are always going on about providing a better quality of life for people as they get older, and a health service in which nobody ever gets bedsores. Banks promise you high interest rates, some food promises to make you lose weight if you eat it, and body creams guarantee old age with fewer wrinkles. Life is quite simply a matter of cruising along in your own little boat through a constantly changing but never-ending stream of promises. And how many do we remember? We forget the ones we would like to remember, and we remember the ones we'd prefer to forget. Broken promises are like shadows dancing around in the twilight. The older I become, the more clearly I see them.

Life was like your shoes. You couldn't simply expect or imagine that your shoes would fit perfectly. Shoes that pinched your feet were a fact of life.

Of course I'm going to die. We all reach a point where we no longer have the strength to deny what's going to happen. Death is the only constant companion a human being can have in this life. Even a lunatic usually knows when it's time to go.

I've felt cold all my life. I've gone looking for warmth in deserts and tropical countries. But all the time I've had a little icicle hanging inside me. People always have baggage. For some it's sorrow, for others it's worry. For me, it's always been an icicle.

There are always humiliating moments in the life of every woman. What most of us find worst is what happened when we were very young.

Truth is often stranger than fiction.

There are remarkable people living everywhere, but nobody notices them because they're old. We live in an age when old people are supposed to be as transparent as a sheet of glass. It's best if we don't even notice that they exist. You are becoming more and more transparent as well.

It's just as easy to lose your way inside yourself as it is to get lost in the woods or in a city.

Good shoes help a person to forget about his feet. Nobody travels through life on a table or on a sheet of paper. Feet and the ground are linked together.

To make a difference that's so small it's not even noticeable. But it's a difference, for all that.

There's no such thing as normal people. That's a twisted view of the world that politicians want us to believe. That we are all a part of an endless mass of normality, with no possibility, never mind desire to claim that we are different.

If you live long enough, you'll realise that nothing is impossible.

Death wipes out everything that has lived. Death leaves no trace, apart from the things I've always found so difficult to cope with.

If you dig too deeply into others, you can risk destroying a beautiful friendship.

Henning Mankell's

Mankell's first story i read is "The Dogs of Riga", a Vietnamese translation one. I read it because the name of the book interested me. I really did not like it much. Anyway I tried the second one "One Step Behind" and this really shocked and attracted me. I like it so much. And then like an addict, I have been finding all of his books, the later in Vietnam was "Firewall" also in Vietnamese translated one. And now in Canada I have really really so good opportunities to read Mankell's other books. Now of course also translation but in English version. I am so happy. He is really a great great author I admire. More and more I become Mankell's big fan.

Let's see what i read

1. The Dogs of Riga

2. One Step Behind

3. Firewall


4. The Pyramids

5. Faceless Killers

6. Sidetracked

7. The White Linoness

8. The Man Who Smiled

9. The Return of The Dancing master

10. Before the Frost

11. Kennedy's Brain

12. The Troubled Man

13. Depths

14. Chronicler of The Winds

15. A bridge to the Stars

16. Shadows in the Twilight

17. When the Snow Fell

18. Journey to the end of the world

19. Italian Shoes

20. The man from Beijing