If 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 HaddonIt exasperated her sometimes. The way men could be so sure of themselves. They put words together like sheds or shelves and you could stand on them they were so solid. And those feelings which overwhelmed you in the small hours turned to smoke.
Mark HaddonI started writing books for children because I could illustrate them myself and because, in my innocence, I thought they'd be easier.
Mark HaddonSometimes 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 HaddonAnd when you look at the sky you know you are looking at stars which are hundreds and thousands of light-years away from you. And some of the stars donโt even exist anymore because their light has taken so long to get to us that they are already dead, or they have exploded and collapsed into red dwarfs. And that makes you seem very small, and if you have difficult things in you life it is nice to think that they are what is called negligible, which means they are so small you donโt have to take them into account when you are calculating something.
Mark Haddon