#writ

If you enjoy math and you write novels, it's very rare that you'll get a chance to put your math into a novel. I leapt at the chance. ↗

— Mark Haddon

#enjoy #get #i #into #math

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. ↗

— Mark Haddon

#away #become #being #come #decide

I started writing books for children because I could illustrate them myself and because, in my innocence, I thought they'd be easier. ↗

— Mark Haddon

#books #children #could #easier #i

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

#around #certain #certain extent #extent #feel

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 Haddon

#book #does #done #horror #just

Jane Austen was writing about boring people with desperately limited lives. We forget this because we've seen too many of her books on screen. ↗

— Mark Haddon

#austen #because #books #boring #boring people

Most of my work consisted of crossing out. Crossing out was the secret of all good writing. ↗

— Mark Haddon

#crossing #good #good writing #most #out

I've written 16 children's books and five unpublished novels. Some of the latter were breathtakingly bad. ↗

— Mark Haddon

#books #children #five #i #latter

The one thing you have to do if you write a book is put yourself in someone else's shoes. The reader's shoes. You've got to entertain them. ↗

— Mark Haddon

#else #entertain #got #one thing #put

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. ↗

— Mark Haddon

#children #comfortable #fiction #four #genre