“If you came from Mars and tried to analyse British or American society...” — Mark Haddon Quote

“If you came from Mars and tried to analyse British or American society through novels, you'd think our society was preponderantly full of middle-aged, slightly alcoholic, middle-class, intellectual men, most of whom are divorced from their families and have nothing to do with children.”

“I have very fond memories of swimming in Walden Pond when we lived in Boston. You'd swim past a log and see all these turtles sunning themselves. Slightly disturbing if you thought about how many more were swimming around your toes, but also rather wonderful.”

“Lots of things are mystries. But that doesn't mean there isn't an answer to them. It's just that scientists haven't found the answer yet.”

“I am really interested in eccentric minds. It's rather like being fascinated by how cars work. It's really boring if your car works all the time. But as soon as something happens, you get the bonnet up. If someone has an abnormal or dysfunctional state of mind, you get the bonnet up.”

“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 think as an American society, when we're paying too many taxes or dealing with war, we don't want to see sad things at the movies.”

“Russians clearly perceive America's global influence as being in irreversible decline and American society shattered by major political, economic and ideological crises.”

“This war of choice in Iraq is undermining the very fabric of American society.”

“The most distinguished hallmark of the American society is and always has been change.”

“It's only when you get towards the top that people start throwing you down a rope. It's like a law of nature, and it makes me think a lot about what my responsibility is to folks who are further down the hole where I was - how I can offer them help and how I can try to help change the structure of American society.”

“With 'Arrested Development,' we tried showing the deep disdain that connects a family. We wanted to hold up a mirror to American society. And, just as predicted, America looked away.”