Mark Haddon
Mark Haddon
Mark Haddonis an English novelist, best known for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. He won the Whitbread Award, Guardian Prize, and a Commonwealth Writers Prize for his work...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth26 September 1962
fall people half
Things can be funny when people are uneasy. It softens them up and stops them falling asleep on the sofa. I like those moments where people half-smile and half-wince.
book writing done
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.
book kids imperfection
If kids like a picture book, they're going to read it at least 50 times. Read anything that often, and even minor imperfections start to feel like gravel in the bed.
stars fall night
..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.
writing today stories
Well, we're meant to be writing stories today,
mean smell people
People say that you always have to tell the truth. But they do not mean this because you are not allowed to tell old people that they are old and you are not allowed to tell people if they smell funny or if a grown-up has made a fart. And you are not allowed to say, 'I don't like you,' unless that person has been horrible to you.
people stranger mets
I do not like strangers because I do not like people I have never met before. They are hard to understand.
lost timetables
... why I like timetables, because they make sure I don't get lost in time.
eye
How pleased we are to have our eyes opened but how easily we close them again.
real people film
You make a film you feel is as real as possible and hope people react as though it were real.
giving poetry-is wrapping
I like poetry when I don't quite understand why I like it. Poetry isn't just a question of wrapping something up and giving it to someone else to unwrap. It just doesn't work like that.
mean names want
I want my name to mean me.
nice home class
There was a time in my life when I was going in and out of houses that were extraordinarily different - from a working-class terrace in Northampton to the homes of friends who were really very wealthy. It was quite an odd position to be in, I realise looking back, and quite a nice one.
children writing fiction
When I was writing for children, I was writing genre fiction. It was like making a good chair. It needed four legs of the same length, it had to be the right height and it had to be comfortable.