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 bit of a roller coaster ride...
Mark HaddonAs a teenager, I was always this strange mixture of kind of vice-captain of the rugby team and sensitive artist type the rest of the time. I was sent away to this public school in the middle of nowhere, and I think we managed to completely miss out on normal youth culture.
Mark Haddon..because when we look up into the sky at night there will be no darkness, just the blazing light of billions and billions of stars, all falling.
Mark HaddonIf one book's done this well, you want to write another one that does just as well. There's that horror of the second novel that doesn't match up.
Mark HaddonMadness doesn't happen to someone alone. Very few people have experiences that are theirs alone.
Mark HaddonStories about mental aberration and oddity only make sense in context. Just how do people live with someone who is peculiar, gifted, strange or alien? It's odd because there's a little part of me that wants to write about exotic, strange bizarre subjects. Instead, I've rather reluctantly realised that what I write about is families.
Mark Haddon