Mark Haddon

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

I like poetry when I don't quite understand why I like it. Poetry isn't just a question of wrapping something up and giving it to someone else to unwrap. It just doesn't work like that.

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.

A board of directors that cannot produce reliable audited financial statements for almost seven years simply should not remain in office.

A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs.

But with each passing year and each new study, the evidence for the genetic contribution to individual and group differences becomes more firmly established than ever.