Author

As a kid, I didn't read a great deal of fiction, and I've forgotten most of what I did read.

B is for bestseller.

Bore children, and they stop reading. There's no room for self-indulgence or showing off or setting the scene.

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.

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 knew there was a story; once you find a dog with a fork through it, you know there's a story there.

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

I think the U.K. is too small to write about from within it and still make it seem foreign and exotic and interesting.

I've worked in television long enough to know that when you stop enjoying that type of thing you go home and do something else.

I've written 16 children's books and five unpublished novels.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

Mark Haddon