"My book has a very simple surface, but there are layers of irony and paradox all the way through it."

Writing, Irony, Paradox

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"My book has a very simple surface, but there are layers of irony and paradox all the way through it."

Exlpore more Writing quotes

"Writing. Is it a way to be remembered,or a need to become immortal?"

Toba Beta, Indonesian Author

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"The book is openly a kind of spiritual autobiography, but the trick is that on any other level it's a kind of insane collage of fragments of memory."

Jonathan Lethem, American Writer

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"I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine."

Emily Dickinson, American Poet

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"Between the lines of every book the writer reveals their own secrets."

Chloe Thurlow, British Novelist

Writing, Secrets, Observation, Insight

"My whole theory of writing I can sum up in one sentence. An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward."

F. Scott Fitzgerald, American Author

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"I've always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it's a bit like fucking, which is only fun for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling."

Hunter S. Thompson, American Journalist

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"Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be."

Mark Twain, American Author

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"Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open."

Stephen King, American Author

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"A novelist should not be too intelligent either, although... he may be permitted to be an intellectual."

Anthony Burgess, English Novelist

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"Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are."

Henry David Thoreau, American Author

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Explore more quotes by Mark Haddon

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

Work

"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."

Chance

"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."

Reading

"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."

Life

"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."

Family

"Many children's writers don't have children of their own."

Family

"Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well."

Books

"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."

Reading

"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."

Family

"I am atheist in a very religious mould. I'm always asking myself the big questions. Where did we come from? Is there a meaning to all of this? When I find myself in church, I edit the hymns as I sing them."

Church