Jane Austen writes about these humdrum lives with such empathy that they seem endlessly fascinating Mark Haddon More Quotes by Mark Haddon More Quotes From Mark Haddon It wasn't about believing this or that, it wasn't even about good and evil and right and wrong, it was about finding the strength to bear the discomfort that came with being in the world. Mark Haddon evil believe world Everyone has learning difficulties, because learning to speak French or understanding relativity is difficult. Mark Haddon difficult speaks-french understanding Sometimes we get sad about things and we don't like to tell other people that we are sad about them. We like to keep it a secret. Or sometimes, we are sad but we really don't know why we are sad, so we say we aren't sad but we really are. Mark Haddon sad secret people For me, disability is a way of getting some extremity, some kind of very difficult situation, that throws an interesting light on people. Mark Haddon difficult-situations light people And it occurred to him that there were two parts to being a better person. One part was thinking about other people. The other part was not giving a toss what other people thought. Mark Haddon two people thinking He was asking too many questions and he was asking them too quickly. They were stacking up in my head like loaves in the factory where Uncle Terry works. The factory is a bakery and he operates the slicing machines. And sometimes a slicer is not working fast enough but the bread keeps coming and there is a blockage. I sometimes think of my mind as a machine, but not always as a bread-slicing machine. It makes it easier to explain to other people what is going on inside it. Mark Haddon uncles people thinking I like dogs. You always know what a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad, cross and concentrating. Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk. Mark Haddon dog lying thinking I rolled back onto the lawn and pressed my forehead to the ground again and made the noise that Father calls groaning. I make this noise when there is too much information coming into my head from the outside world. It is like when you are upset and you hold the radio against your ear and you tune it halfway between two stations so that all you get is white noise and then you turn the volume right up so that this is all can hear and then you know you are safe because you cannot hear anything else Mark Haddon white two father I think most writers feel like they're on the outside looking in much of the time... All of us feel, to a certain extent, alienated from the stuff going on around us. Mark Haddon literature stuff thinking All the other children at my school are stupid. Except I'm not meant to call them stupid, even though this is what they are. Mark Haddon honesty stupid children On the fifth day, which was a Sunday, it rained very hard. I like it when it rains hard. It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silence but not empty. Mark Haddon sunday white rain 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. Mark Haddon sunday book children I don't mean that literary fiction is better than genre fiction, On the contrary; novels can perform two functions and most perform only one. Mark Haddon two mean fiction I think people believe in heaven because they don't like the idea of dying, because they want to carry on living and they don't like the idea that other people will move into their house and put their things into the rubbish. Mark Haddon believe moving thinking Siobhan said that when you are writing a book you have to include some descriptions of things. I said that I could take photographs and put them in the book. But she said the idea of a book was to describe things using words so that people could read them and make a picture in their own head. Mark Haddon writing book ideas Writing for children is bloody difficult; books for children are as complex as their adult counterparts, and they should therefore be accorded the same respect. Mark Haddon writing book children Most of my work consisted of crossing out. Crossing out was the secret of all good writing. Mark Haddon good-writing secret writing Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them. Mark Haddon taken math thinking Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well. Mark Haddon reading literature book I want my name to mean me. Mark Haddon names want mean
