Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well. — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
Bore children, and they stop reading. There's no room for self-indulgence or showing off or setting the scene. — 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
Most of my work consisted of crossing out. Crossing out was the secret of all good writing. — 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I've written 16 children's books and five unpublished novels.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
If you enjoy math and you write novels, it's very rare that you'll get a chance to put your math into a… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
The main impetus for being a writer is thinking, 'I could invent another world. I'm not terribly keen on this one.' — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
I thought Bill Bryson's 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' was remarkable. Managing to be entertaining while still delivering all that hard… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
Indeed, I am repeatedly astonished by the number of really good writers who understand human beings so well on paper but don't… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
I don't remember deciding to become a writer. You decide to become a dentist or a postman. For me, writing is like… — 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 better make the plot good. I wanted to make it grip people on the first page and have a big turning… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
I think most writers feel like they're on the outside looking in much of the time. All of us feel, to a… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
I'm a writer! If you work in an office, it dampens you. It makes you fit a routine. The effect of being… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
“And herein lies the key to the brilliance of Mark Haddon’s choice of narrator: The most wrenching of emotional moments are chronicled… — 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
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
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
As to the number of novels I've abandoned... I shudder to think. I have thrown away five completed novels, and that's a… — 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
“Reading is primarily a symptom. Of a healthy imagination, of our interest in this and other worlds, of our ability to be… — 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
