English - Novelist | September 26, 1962 -
Many children's writers don't have children of their own.
Mark Haddon
ChildrenOwnManyWriters
Most adults, unlike most children, understand the difference between a book that will hold them spellbound for a rainy Sunday afternoon and a book that will put them in touch with a part of themselves they didn't even know existed.
ChildrenBookSundayKnowUnderstand
No one wants to know how clever you are. They don't want an insight into your mind, thrilling as it might be. They want an insight into their own.
MindYouKnowWantCleverInsight
Science and literature give me answers. And they ask me questions I will never be able to answer.
ScienceMeQuestionsLiteratureWill
That's important to me, to find the extraordinary inside the ordinary.
MeFindImportantInsideOrdinary
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.
ShoesYourselfBookSomeoneYouGot
There's something with the physical size of America... American writers can write about America and it can still feel like a foreign country.
AmericanFeelAmericaCountrySize
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.
GoodChildrenWritingChairLegs
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.
ChildrenRespectWritingDifficult
Young readers have to be entertained. No child reads fiction because they think it's going to make them a better person.
ChildBetter PersonThinkBetter
If kids like a picture book, they're going to read it at least 50 times, and their parents are going to have to read it with them. Read anything that often, and even minor imperfections start to feel like gravel in the bed.
ParentsStartBookPictureFeelBed
Appalling things can happen to children. And even a happy childhood is filled with sadnesses.
ChildrenChildhoodHappyHappenEven
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