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"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."
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"The difference between a 'man' and a 'father' is that the former shares his genes, but latter gives his life."
Explore more quotes by Mark Haddon
"Every life is narrow. Our only escape is not to run away, but to learn to love the people we are and the world in which we find ourselves."
"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."
"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."
"At 20, 25, 30, we begin to realise that the possibilities of escape are getting fewer. We have jobs, children, partners, debts. This is the part of us to which literary fiction speaks."
"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."
"Children simply don't make the distinction; a book is either good or bad. And some of the books they think are good are very, very bad indeed."
"Writing for children is bloody difficult; books for children are as complex as their adult counterparts, and they should therefore be accorded the same respect."
"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."
"I don't mean that literary fiction is better than genre fiction, On the contrary; novels can perform two functions and most perform only one."
"I've written 16 children's books and five unpublished novels. Some of the latter were breathtakingly bad."
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