“As to the number of novels I've abandoned... I shudder to think. I hav...” — Mark Haddon Quote

“As to the number of novels I've abandoned... I shudder to think. I have thrown away five completed novels, and that's a gruesome enough figure. But not necessarily a waste of effort.”

“My best days do seem like a distillation of all that was best about school. Write a story! Paint a picture! Write a poem! Make a print!”

“Stories about mental aberration and oddity only make sense in context. Just how do people live with someone who is peculiar, gifted, strange or alien? It's odd because there's a little part of me that wants to write about exotic, strange bizarre subjects. Instead, I've rather reluctantly realised that what I write about is families.”

“We must go through every area of the federal budget to isolate waste and abandoned projects.”

“They say that abandonment is a wound that never heals. I say only that an abandoned child never forgets.”

“Many of our greatest musicians abandoned all of their aesthetic objectives to try to become pertinent. And, at the end of the day, they never became pop stars. I counter stated that very strongly, and I continue to do that.”