Quotes from Mark Haddon

Bueno, ¿cómo te va, capitán? Y yo dije: —Me va muy bien, gracias —que es lo que se supone que tienes que decir.

Eventually scientists will discover something that explains ghosts, just like they discovered electricity which explained lightning, and it might be something about people's brains, or something about the earth's magnetic field, or it might be some new force altogether. And then ghosts won't be mysteries. They will be like electricity and rainbows and non-stick frying pans.

And intuition is what people is what people use in life to make decisions.But logic can help you work out the right answer.

I liked maths because it meant solving problems, and these problems were difficult and interesting but there was always a straightforward answer at the end

It was a stupid, insane, suicidal idea. Which makes it quite hard to explain why I decided to help. I guess it boils down to this. Charlie was my best friend. I missed him. And I couldn't think of anything better to do. Really stupid reasons which were never going to impress the police, the headmistress or my parents. Looking back, I reckon this was the moment when my whole life started to go pear-shaped.

like when you wake up at night, and the only sounds you hear are the sounds inside your head.

Perhaps this is what all prayer is, when the ceremony and the theology are peeled away, a serious stillness in which one talks quietly to one's own best self.

Es ging darum, die nötige Stärke zu finden, um das Unwohlsein zu ertragen, das es mit sich brachte, auf dieser Welt zu sein.

The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely. How anyone could work in the same office for ten years or bring up children without putting certain things to the back of their mind was beyond him.

Glauben ist das Vertrauen ins Unmögliche.

The dog was dead. There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog...I decided the dog was probably killed with the fork because I could not see any other wounds in the dog and I do not think you would stick a garden fork into a dog after it had died for some other reason, like cancer, for example, or a road accident. But I could not be certain about this.

Vergeben und vergessen. Langsam verstand sie, was das hieß. Man konnte nicht vergessen, bevor nicht jemand anderes einem vergab.

Wie ist das jetzt mit der Religion bei dir? Es war nicht Neid. Eher eine Art zoologische Faszination.

Ich weinte, weil ich keine Schuhe hatte, bis ich einen traf, der keine Füße hatte.

Maybe George was fooling himself. Maybe old people always fooled themselves, pretending that the world was going to hell because it was easier than admitting they were being left behind, that the future was pulling away from the beach and they were standing on their little island bidding it good riddance, knowing in their hearts that there was nothing left for them to do but sit around on the shingle waiting for the big disease to come out of the undergrowth.

She thought about the men with bows and arrows. They were really here, weren't they, once upon a time. And mammoths and ladies in crinolines and Spitfires overhead. Places remained and time flowed through them like wind through the grass. Right now. This was the future turning into the past. One thing becoming another thing. Like a flame on the end of a match. Wood turning into smoke. If only we could burn brighter. A barn roaring in the night.

And I remember looking at the two of you and seeing you together and thinking how you were really differant with him. Much calmer. And you didn't shout at one another. And it made me so sad because it was like you didn't really need me at all. And somehow that was even worse than you and me arguing all the time because it was like I was invisible. And I think that was when I realised you and your father were probably better off if I wasn't living in the house.

We had a lot of argumants like that. Because I often thought I couldn't take any more. And your father is really pacient but I'm not, I get cross, even though I don't mean too. And by the end we stopped talking to each other very much because we knew it would always end up in an argumant and it would go nowere, And I felt realy lonley.

Never trust a man who doesn't like animals. That's my rule.

Los niños de mi colegio son estúpidos. Pero se supone que no he de llamarlos estúpidos, ni siquiera aunque sea eso lo que son. Se supone que he de decir que tienen dificultades de aprendizaje o que tienen necesidades especiales.

Mother used to say that it meant Christopher was a nice name because it was a story about being kind and helpful, but I do not want my name to mean a story about being kind and helpful. I want my name to mean me.

It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silcence but not empty.

All those other lives. You never did get to lead them.

She understood now. You got married in spite of your wedding not because of it.