No one is ever really a stranger. We cling to the belief that we share nothing with certain people. It's rubbish. We… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
I think one of the things you have to learn if you're going to create believable characters is never to make generalizations… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
Payments to the disabled are getting slashed and people like me are getting a tax cut. Who could possibly think that is… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
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 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
A lot of roles for people with disabilities are quite patronising. It's a real pity when they are just used to give… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
People say that you always have to tell the truth. But they do not mean this because you are not allowed to… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
I think people believe in heaven because they don't like the idea of dying, because they want to carry on living and… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
The word "metaphor" means carrying something from one place to another . . . and it is when you describe something by… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
And this shows that people want to be stupid and they do not want to know the truth. And it shows that… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
He was asking too many questions and he was asking them too quickly. They were stacking up in my head like loaves… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
At teenage parties he was always wandering into the garden, sitting on a bench in the dark . . . staring up… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
You make a film you feel is as real as possible and hope people react as though it were real. — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
And this shows that sometimes people want to be stupid and they do not want to know the truth. — 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
Things can be funny when people are uneasy. It softens them up and stops them falling asleep on the sofa. I like… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
Madness doesn't happen to someone alone. Very few people have experiences that are theirs alone. — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
For me, disability is a way of getting some extremity, some kind of very difficult situation, that throws an interesting light on… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
And it occurred to him that there were two parts to being a better person. One part was thinking about other people.… — 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
I am quite amazed how, when people earn lots of money, they think they have to spend it on things that give… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
It took me a long time to come out as someone who doesn't like film. It's a bit like when people say… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
Stories about mental aberration and oddity only make sense in context. Just how do people live with someone who is peculiar, gifted,… — 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
Usually people look at you when they're talking to you. I know that they're working out what I'm thinking, but I can't… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
And because there is something they can’t see people think it has to be special, because people always think there is something… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
Eventually scientists will discover something that explains ghosts, just like they discovered electricity, which explained lightning, and it might be something about… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
... He had always rather liked emergencies. Other people's at any rate. They put your own problems into perspective. It was like… — 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
People think that alien spaceships would be solid and made of metal and have lights all over them and move slowly through… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
...people who believe in God think God has put human beings on earth because they think human beings are the best animal,… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
I went to boarding school, and then I went to Oxford, and I know how easy it is for certain groups of… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
Obviously I have a capacity for feeling extreme anxiety, and there are people out there who don't. I'm to some extent rather… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
Every life is narrow. Our only escape is not to run away, but to learn to love the people we are and… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
But I said that you could still want something that is very unlikely to happen. — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
“So often these days she seemed to hover between worlds, none of them wholly real.” — 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 was brave… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“And it was strange because he was calling, "Christopher. . . ? Christopher. . . ?" and I could see my name written out… — Mark Haddon Copy Share Image
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 Image
