My book has a very simple surface, but there are layers of irony and paradox all the way through it. — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well. — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
From a good book, I want to be taken to the very edge. I want a glimpse into that outer darkness. — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
I read very, very little fiction as a kid. All the books I can remember are junior science books. — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
Jane Austen was writing about boring people with desperately limited lives. We forget this because we've seen too many of her books… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
Writing for children is bloody difficult; books for children are as complex as their adult counterparts, and they should therefore be accorded… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
If you're trying to be a successful writer, and you go into a second-hand bookshop, it's the graveyard of people whose books… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
One of the freedoms you get if you earn a lot of money from a book is to throw away what you… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
If kids like a picture book, they're going to read it at least 50 times. Read anything that often, and even minor… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
I've written 16 children's books and five unpublished novels. Some of the latter were breathtakingly bad. — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
I started writing books for children because I could illustrate them myself and because, in my innocence, I thought they'd be easier. — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
If one book's done this well, you want to write another one that does just as well. There's that horror of the… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
Siobhan said that when you are writing a book you have to include some descriptions of things. I said that I could… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
“He had always thought of solitary diners as sad. But now that he was the solitary diner, he felt rather superior. On… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
Curious Incident is not a book about asperger's…if anything it's a novel about difference, about being an outsider, about seeing the world… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
I think Britain has this tradition which suggests that if you make the readers laugh too much, you can't really be serious.… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
Books are like people. Some look deceptively attractive from a distance, some deceptively unappealing; some are easy company, some demand hard work… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
The most difficult book I wrote was the fourth in a series of linked children's books. It was like pulling teeth because… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
If kids like a picture book, they're going to read it at least 50 times, and their parents are going to have… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
Most adults, unlike most children, understand the difference between a book that will hold them spellbound for a rainy Sunday afternoon and… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
Children simply don't make the distinction; a book is either good or bad. And some of the books they think are good… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery…and I… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
The one thing you have to do if you write a book is put yourself in someone else's shoes. The reader's shoes.… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
But I said that you could still want something that is very unlikely to happen. — Mark Haddon Copy Share
“So often these days she seemed to hover between worlds, none of them wholly real.” — Mark Haddon Copy Share
And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery…and I was brave… — Mark Haddon Copy Share
And what he meant was that maths wasn't like life because in life there are no straightforward answers in the end — Mark Haddon Copy Share
“when you describe something by using a word for something that it isn’t. This means that the word metaphor is a metaphor. I” — Mark Haddon Copy Share
“They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.” — Mark Haddon Copy Share
“Places remained and time flowed through them like wind through the grass. Right now. This was the future turning into the past. One thing… — Mark Haddon Copy Share
I suffer depression only in the sense that I am a writer. We don't have proper jobs to go to. We are on our… — Mark Haddon Copy Share
I better make the plot good. I wanted to make it grip people on the first page and have a big turning point in… — Mark Haddon Copy Share
“And it was strange because he was calling, "Christopher. . . ? Christopher. . . ?" and I could see my name written out… — Mark Haddon Copy Share
A lot of roles for people with disabilities are quite patronising. It's a real pity when they are just used to give dull PC… — Mark Haddon Copy Share
I do not like strangers because I do not like people I have never met before. They are hard to understand. — Mark Haddon Copy Share
“Lots of people wrote to the magazine to say that Marilyn vos Savant was wrong, even when she explained very carefully why she was… — Mark Haddon Copy Share
I read very, very little fiction as a kid. All the books I can remember are junior science books. — Mark Haddon Copy Share
