Mark Haddon Quotes & Sayings

“Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.”

“I really like the idea of being a bit unpredictable. I'm known for being a nice, easy-going person with a straightforward exterior. So I think a bit of me wants to be sort of sly and devious.”

“I better make the plot good. I wanted to make it grip people on the first page and have a big turning point in the middle, as there is, and construct the whole thing like a roller coaster ride.”

“I don't remember deciding to become a writer. You decide to become a dentist or a postman. For me, writing is like being gay. You finally admit that this is who you are, you come out and hope that no one runs away.”

“For me, disability is a way of getting some extremity, some kind of very difficult situation, that throws an interesting light on people.”

“From a good book, I want to be taken to the very edge. I want a glimpse into that outer darkness.”

“No one wants to know how clever you are. They don't want an insight into your mind, thrilling as it might be. They want an insight into their own.”

“Most adults, unlike most children, understand the difference between a book that will hold them spellbound for a rainy Sunday afternoon and a book that will put them in touch with a part of themselves they didn't even know existed.”

“I think one of the things you have to learn if you're going to create believable characters is never to make generalizations about groups of people.”

“Obviously I have a capacity for feeling extreme anxiety, and there are people out there who don't. I'm to some extent rather jealous of them.”