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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.
-Mark Haddon
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Every Life Is Narrow.

Mark Haddon
...
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.

Understanding the Quote: "every life is narrow. our only escape is not to run away,..."

This quote by Mark Haddon reflects deeply on the theme of running. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Running, People, Literature, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Mark Haddon interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Mark Haddon

Mark Haddon is celebrated for insightful thoughts on running and people. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Running
People
Literature
More From Mark Haddon
And It's Best If You Know A Good Thing Is Going To Happen, Like An Eclipse Or Getting A Microscope For Christmas. And It's Bad If You Know A Bad Thing Is Going To Happen, Like Having A Filling Or Going To France. But I Think It Is Worst If You Don't Know Whether It Is A Good Thing Or A Bad Thing Which Is Going To Happen.
Life
Thinking
France
It Exasperated Her Sometimes. The Way Men Could Be So Sure Of Themselves. They Put Words Together Like Sheds Or Shelves And You Could Stand On Them They Were So Solid. And Those Feelings Which Overwhelmed You In The Small Hours Turned To Smoke.
Men
Feelings
Together
And Father Said, "christopher, Do You Understand That I Love You?" And I Said "yes," Because Loving Someone Is Helping Them When They Get Into Trouble, And Looking After Them, And Telling Them The Truth, And Father Looks After Me When I Get Into Trouble, Like Coming To The Police Station, And He Looks After Me By Cooking Meals For Me, And He Always Tells Me The Truth, Which Means That He Loves Me.
Father
Love You
Mean
I Want My Name To Mean Me.
Mean
Names
Want
I Think Most Writers Feel Like They're On The Outside Looking In Much Of The Time... All Of Us Feel, To A Certain Extent, Alienated From The Stuff Going On Around Us.
Thinking
Literature
Stuff
But In Life You Have To Take Lots Of Decisions And If You Don't Take Decisions You Would Never Do Anything Because You Would Spend All Your Time Choosing Between Things You Could Do. So It Is Good To Have A Reason Why You Hate Some Things And You Like Others.
Hate
Decision
Reason Why
Science And Literature Give Me Answers. And They Ask Me Questions I Will Never Be Able To Answer.
Giving
Answers
Literature
I Do Not Like Strangers Because I Do Not Like People I Have Never Met Before. They Are Hard To Understand.
People
Stranger
Mets
But I Don't Feel Sad About It. Because Mother Is Dead. And Because Mr. Shears Isn't Around Anymore. So I Would Be Feeling Sad About Something That Isn't Real And Doesn't Exist. And That Would Be Stupid.
Mother
Real
Stupid
Fiction That Responds To Recent World Events Is A Hostage To Fortune Because All Momentous Events Look Very Different A Year, Two Years, Three Years Later.
Years
Two
World
I Like Having My Back Pressed Against A Wall And Being Made To Work Harder So I Don't Embarrass Myself.
Wall
Made
Work Harder
There's Something With The Physical Size Of America... American Writers Can Write About America And It Can Still Feel Like A Foreign Country.
Country
Travel
Writing
And I Go Out Of Father's House And I Walk Down The Street, And It Is Very Quiet Even Thought It Is The Middle Of The Day And I Can't Hear Any Noise Except Birds Singing And Wind And Sometimes Buildings Falling Down In The Distance, And If I Stand Very Close To Traffic Lights I Can Hear A Little Click As The Colors Change.
Distance
Father
Fall
Prime Numbers Are What Is Left When You Have Taken All The Patterns Away. I Think Prime Numbers Are Like Life. They Are Very Logical But You Could Never Work Out The Rules, Even If You Spent All Your Time Thinking About Them.
Taken
Math
Thinking
My Book Has A Very Simple Surface, But There Are Layers Of Irony And Paradox All The Way Through It.
Book
Simple
Literature
Appalling Things Can Happen To Children. And Even A Happy Childhood Is Filled With Sadnesses.
Children
Sadness
Childhood
And Because There Is Something They Can’t See People Think It Has To Be Special, Because People Always Think There Is Something Special About What They Can’t See, Like The Dark Side Of The Moon, Or The Other Side Of A Black Hole, Or In The Dark When They Wake Up At Night And They’re Scared.
Life
Dark
Moon
I Think One Of The Things You Have To Learn If You're Going To Create Believable Characters Is Never To Make Generalizations About Groups Of People.
Character
Thinking
People
If One Book's Done This Well, You Want To Write Another One That Does Just As Well. There's That Horror Of The Second Novel That Doesn't Match Up.
Book
Writing
Doe
People Think That Alien Spaceships Would Be Solid And Made Of Metal And Have Lights All Over Them And Move Slowly Through The Sky Because That Is How We Would Build A Spaceship If We Were Able To Build One That Big. But Aliens, If They Exist, Would Probably Be Very Different From Us. They Might Look Like Big Slugs, Or Be Flat Like Reflections. Or They Might Be Bigger Than Planets. Or They Might Not Have Bodies At All. They Might Just Be Information, Like In A Computer. And Their Spaceships Might Look Like Clouds, Or Be Made Up Of Unconnected Objects Like Dust Or Leaves.
Moving
Reflection
Thinking
And This Shows That People Want To Be Stupid And They Do Not Want To Know The Truth. And It Shows That Something Called Occam's Razor Is True. And Occam's Razor Is Not A Razor That Men Shave With But A Law, And It Says: Entia Non Sunt Multiplicanda Praeter Necessitatem. Which Is Latin And It Means: No More Things Should Be Presumed To Exist Than Are Absolutely Necessary. Which Means That A Murder Victim Is Usually Killed By Someone Known To Them And Fairies Are Made Out Of Paper And You Can't Talk To Someone Who Is Dead.
Latin
Stupid
Mean
I Read Very, Very Little Fiction As A Kid. All The Books I Can Remember Are Junior Science Books.
Book
Kids
Fiction
As A Teenager, I Was Always This Strange Mixture Of Kind Of Vice-captain Of The Rugby Team And Sensitive Artist Type The Rest Of The Time. I Was Sent Away To This Public School In The Middle Of Nowhere, And I Think We Managed To Completely Miss Out On Normal Youth Culture.
Teenager
Team
School
You Love Someone, You've Got To Let Something Go.
Passenger Seat
Love Someone
For Me, Disability Is A Way Of Getting Some Extremity, Some Kind Of Very Difficult Situation, That Throws An Interesting Light On People.
Light
Difficult Situations
People
...and There Was Nothing To Do Except To Wait And To Hurt.
Hurt
Waiting
At 20, 25, 30, We Begin To Realise That The Possibilities Of Escape Are Getting Fewer. We Have Jobs, Children, Partners, Debts. This Is The Part Of Us To Which Literary Fiction Speaks.
Jobs
Children
Fiction
Lots Of Things Are Mysteries. But That Doesn't Mean There Isn't An Answer To Them. It's Just That Scientists Haven't Found The Answer Yet.
Mean
Answers
Mystery
Most Of My Work Consisted Of Crossing Out. Crossing Out Was The Secret Of All Good Writing.
Writing
Secret
Good Writing
At Twenty Life Was Like Wrestling An Octopus. Every Moment Mattered. At Thirty It Was A Walk In The Country. Most Of The Time Your Mind Was Somewhere Else. By The Time You Got To Seventy, It Was Probably Like Watching Snooker On The Telly.
Country
Wrestling
Somewhere Else
I Could Invent Another World. I'm Not Terribly Keen On This One.
World
Another World
If You Enjoy Math And You Write Novels, It's Very Rare That You'll Get A Chance To Put Your Math Into A Novel. I Leapt At The Chance.
Writing
Math
Chance
... He Had Always Rather Liked Emergencies. Other People's At Any Rate. They Put Your Own Problems Into Perspective. It Was Like Being On A Ferry. You Didn't Have To Think About What You Had To Do Or Where You Had To Go For The Next Few Hours. It Was All Laid Out For You.
Thinking
People
Perspective
What Actually Happens When You Die Is That Your Brain Stops Working And Your Body Rots, Like Rabbit Did When He Died And We Buried Him In The Earth At The Bottom Of The Garden. And All His Molecules Were Broken Down Into Other Molecules And They Went Into The Earth And Were Eaten By Worms And Went Into The Plants And If We Go And Dig In The Same Place In 10 Years There Will Be Nothing Exept His Skeleton Left. And In 1,000 Years Even His Skeleton Will Be Gone. But That Is All Right Because He Is A Part Of The Flowers And The Apple Tree And The Hawthorn Bush Now.
Flower
Garden
Skeletons
The Way Of Creating Believable Characters Is Not By Conforming To A Set Of Pc Rules.
Character
Creating
Way
I Am Atheist In A Very Religious Mould. I'm Always Asking Myself The Big Questions. Where Did We Come From? Is There A Meaning To All Of This? I Read The King James Bible, As All English Writers Should. And When I Find Myself In Church, I Edit The Hymns As I Sing Them.
Religious
Atheist
Hymns
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.
Car
Mind
Abnormal
The Most Difficult Book I Wrote Was The Fourth In A Series Of Linked Children's Books. It Was Like Pulling Teeth Because The Publisher Wanted Exactly The Same But Completely Different. I'd Much Rather Just Do Something Completely Different Even If There's A Risk Of It Going Wrong.
Children
Book
Risk
And When You Look At The Sky You Know You Are Looking At Stars Which Are Hundreds And Thousands Of Light-years Away From You. And Some Of The Stars Don’t Even Exist Anymore Because Their Light Has Taken So Long To Get To Us That They Are Already Dead, Or They Have Exploded And Collapsed Into Red Dwarfs. And That Makes You Seem Very Small, And If You Have Difficult Things In You Life It Is Nice To Think That They Are What Is Called Negligible, Which Means They Are So Small You Don’t Have To Take Them Into Account When You Are Calculating Something.
Stars
Nice
Taken
Show Me The Artist Anywhere Who's Had An Utterly Stable Mental Life, And I'll Buy You Hot Dinners For The Rest Of Your Life.
Artist
Hot
Dinner
A Lot Of Roles For People With Disabilities Are Quite Patronising. It's A Real Pity When They Are Just Used To Give Dull Pc Kudos To A Drama, Or When They're Wheeled On In A Tokenistic Way Without Any Real Involvement In The Plot.
Real
Drama
People
One Person Looks Around And Sees A Universe Created By A God Who Watches Over Its Long Unfurling, Marking The Fall Of Sparrows And Listening To The Prayers Of His Finest Creation. Another Person Believes That Life, In All Its Baroque Complexity, Is A Chemical Aberration That Will Briefly Decorate The Surface Of A Ball Of Rock Spinning Somewhere Among A Billion Galaxies. And The Two Of Them Could Talk For Hours And Find No Great Difference Between One Another, For Neither Set Of Beliefs Make Us Kinder Or Wiser.
Prayer
Believe
Fall
Find The Extraordinary Inside The Ordinary.
Perspective
Ordinary
Extraordinary
...and I Wrote A Book And That Means I Can Do Anything
Book
Mean
I Can
Being Clever Was When You Looked At How Things Were And Used The Evidence To Work Out Something New.
Clever
Work Out
Something New
As A Kid, I Didn't Read A Great Deal Of Fiction, And I've Forgotten Most Of What I Did Read.
Kids
Fiction
Forgotten
Curious Incident Is Not A Book About Asperger's....if Anything It's A Novel About Difference, About Being An Outsider, About Seeing The World In A Surprising And Revealing Way. The Book Is Not Specifically About Any Specific Disorder.
Book
Differences
World
On The Fifth Day, Which Was A Sunday, It Rained Very Hard. I Like It When It Rains Hard. It Sounds Like White Noise Everywhere, Which Is Like Silence But Not Empty.
Rain
Sunday
White
People Say That You Always Have To Tell The Truth. But They Do Not Mean This Because You Are Not Allowed To Tell Old People That They Are Old And You Are Not Allowed To Tell People If They Smell Funny Or If A Grown-up Has Made A Fart. And You Are Not Allowed To Say, 'i Don't Like You,' Unless That Person Has Been Horrible To You.
Mean
Smell
People
I Like Dogs. You Always Know What A Dog Is Thinking. It Has Four Moods. Happy, Sad, Cross And Concentrating. Also, Dogs Are Faithful And They Do Not Tell Lies Because They Cannot Talk.
Dog
Lying
Thinking
I've Written 16 Children's Books And Five Unpublished Novels. Some Of The Latter Were Breathtakingly Bad.
Children
Book
Latter
I Was Born Too Late For Steam Trains And A Lazy Eye Meant I'd Never Be An Astronaut.
Eye
Lazy
Too Late
Everyone Has Learning Difficulties, Because Learning To Speak French Or Understanding Relativity Is Difficult.
Speaks French
Understanding
Difficult
But I Said That You Could Still Want Something That Is Very Unlikely To Happen.
Want Something
Unlikely
Said
I Think I've Learnt That There Is No Character So Strange That You Haven't Shared Their Experience In Some Small Way.
Character
Thinking
Way
I've Come To Realize That Most Good Ideas Are Precisely The Ones You Can't Describe.
Ideas
Realizing
Good Ideas
And What He Meant Was That Maths Wasn't Like Life Because In Life There Are No Straightforward Answers In The End
Math
Answers
Ends
There's Something Rather Wonderful About The Fact That Oxford Is A Very Small City That Contains Most Of The Cultural And Metropolitan Facilities You Could Want, In Terms Of Bookshops, Theatre, Cinema, Conversation. But It's Near Enough To London To Get Here In An Hour, And It's Near Enough To Huge Open Spaces Without Which I Would Go Insane.
Cities
Oxford
Space
Usually People Look At You When They're Talking To You. I Know That They're Working Out What I'm Thinking, But I Can't Tell What They're Thinking. It Is Like Being In A Room With A One-way Mirror In A Spy Film.
Thinking
Mirrors
Talking
I Rolled Back Onto The Lawn And Pressed My Forehead To The Ground Again And Made The Noise That Father Calls Groaning. I Make This Noise When There Is Too Much Information Coming Into My Head From The Outside World. It Is Like When You Are Upset And You Hold The Radio Against Your Ear And You Tune It Halfway Between Two Stations So That All You Get Is White Noise And Then You Turn The Volume Right Up So That This Is All Can Hear And Then You Know You Are Safe Because You Cannot Hear Anything Else
Father
Two
White
How Pleased We Are To Have Our Eyes Opened But How Easily We Close Them Again.
Eye
The Word "metaphor" Means Carrying Something From One Place To Another . . . And It Is When You Describe Something By Using A Word For Something That It Isn't. This Means That The Word "metaphor" Is A Metaphor. I Think It Should Be Called A Lie Because A Pig Is Not Like A Day And People People Do Not Have Skeletons In Their Cupboards. And When I Try And Make A Picture Of The Phrase In My Head It Just Confuses Me Because Imagining And Apple In Someone's Eye Doesn't Have Anything To Do With Liking Someone A Lot And It Makes You Forget What The Person Was Talking About.
Lying
Mean
Eye
..because When We Look Up Into The Sky At Night There Will Be No Darkness, Just The Blazing Light Of Billions And Billions Of Stars, All Falling.
Stars
Fall
Night
He Was Asking Too Many Questions And He Was Asking Them Too Quickly. They Were Stacking Up In My Head Like Loaves In The Factory Where Uncle Terry Works. The Factory Is A Bakery And He Operates The Slicing Machines. And Sometimes A Slicer Is Not Working Fast Enough But The Bread Keeps Coming And There Is A Blockage. I Sometimes Think Of My Mind As A Machine, But Not Always As A Bread-slicing Machine. It Makes It Easier To Explain To Other People What Is Going On Inside It.
Uncles
Thinking
People
Jane Austen Was Writing About Boring People With Desperately Limited Lives. We Forget This Because We've Seen Too Many Of Her Books On Screen.
Book
Writing
People
Many Childrens Writers Dont Have Children Of Their Own
Children
Literature
Bedtime
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.
Book
Writing
Shoes
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.
Clever
Mind
Literature
... Why I Like Timetables, Because They Make Sure I Don't Get Lost In Time.
Lost
Timetables
When I Was 13 Or 14, I Started Devouring Novels; Literature Took Quite A While To Take Me Over, But It Caught Up Just In Time To Save Me From Becoming A Mathematician.
Becoming
Literature
Devouring
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.
Memories
Swimming
Past
I Started Writing Books For Children Because I Could Illustrate Them Myself And Because, In My Innocence, I Thought They'd Be Easier.
Children
Book
Writing
You Could Ask For Hugs If You Were Feeling Sad Or You'd Hurt Yourself, But When It Happened Spontaneously It Made You Feel Warm Inside.
Hurt
Feelings
Feeling Sad
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.
Children
Book
Thinking
Mother Used To Say It Meant Christopher Was A Nice Name Because It Was A Story About Being Kind And Helpful, But I Do Not Want My Name To Mean A Story About Being Kind And Helpful. I Want My Name To Mean Me.
Mother
Nice
Mean
There Was A Time In My Life When I Was Going In And Out Of Houses That Were Extraordinarily Different - From A Working-class Terrace In Northampton To The Homes Of Friends Who Were Really Very Wealthy. It Was Quite An Odd Position To Be In, I Realise Looking Back, And Quite A Nice One.
Nice
Home
Class
Most Murders Are Committed By Someone Who Is Known To The Victim. In Fact, You Are Most Likely To Be Murdered By A Member Of Your Own Family On Christmas Day.
Facts
Murder
Victim
I Think People Believe In Heaven Because They Don't Like The Idea Of Dying, Because They Want To Carry On Living And They Don't Like The Idea That Other People Will Move Into Their House And Put Their Things Into The Rubbish.
Believe
Moving
Thinking
..and Only Sticks And Stones Can Break My Bones.
Stones
Sticks
Bones
Books Are Like People. Some Look Deceptively Attractive From A Distance, Some Deceptively Unappealing; Some Are Easy Company, Some Demand Hard Work That Isn’t Guaranteed To Pay Off. Some Become Friends And Say Friends For Life. Some Change In Our Absence - Or Perhaps It Is We Who Change In Theirs - And We Meet Up Again Only To Find That We Don’t Get Along Any More.
Distance
Book
Hard Work
Indeed, I Am Repeatedly Astonished By The Number Of Really Good Writers Who Understand Human Beings So Well On Paper But Don't Know How To Deal With Them In Real Life.
Real
Numbers
Paper
I Think Good Books Have To Make A Few People Angry.
Book
Thinking
People
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.
Running
People
Literature
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.
Children
Book
Writing
I Suffer Depression Only In The Sense That I Am A Writer. We Don't Have Proper Jobs To Go To. We Are On Our Own All Day. Show Me A Writer Who Doesn't Get Depressed: Who Has A Completely Stable Mood. They'd Be A Garage Mechanic Or Something.
Jobs
Suffering
Mood
Reading Is A Conversation. All Books Talk. But A Good Book Listens As Well.
Book
Reading
Literature
You Make A Film You Feel Is As Real As Possible And Hope People React As Though It Were Real.
Real
People
Film
Well, We're Meant To Be Writing Stories Today.
Writing
Stories
Today
I Went To Boarding School And Then I Went To Oxford, And I Know How Easy It Is For Certain Groups Of People To Become Wholly Insulated From Ordinary Life.
School
Oxford
People
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.
Home
Long
Television
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.
Thinking
Numbers
Effort
Siobhan Also Says That If You Close Your Mouth And Breathe Out Loudly Through Your Nose It Can Mean That You Are Relaxed, Or That You Are Bored, Or That You Are Angry And It All Depends On How Much Air Comes Out Of Your Nose And How Fast And What Shape Your Mouth Is When You Do It And How You Are Sitting And What You Just Said Before And Hundreds Of Other Things Which Are Too Complicated To Work Out In A Few Seconds.
Mean
Air
Work Out
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.
Children
Book
Sunday
Use Your Imagination And You'll See That Even The Most Narrow, Humdrum Lives Are Infinite In Scope If You Examine Them With Enough Care.
Imagination
Use
Care
And It Occurred To Him That There Were Two Parts To Being A Better Person. One Part Was Thinking About Other People. The Other Part Was Not Giving A Toss What Other People Thought.
Thinking
Two
People
What I Love About The Theatre Is That It's Always Metaphorical. It's Like Going Back To Being A Kid Again, And We're All Pretending In A Room. Sometimes, When The Pretending Really Works, I Find It Much, Much More Moving Than Something On Film.
Moving
Kids
Theatre
Siobhan Said That When You Are Writing A Book You Have To Include Some Descriptions Of Things. I Said That I Could Take Photographs And Put Them In The Book. But She Said The Idea Of A Book Was To Describe Things Using Words So That People Could Read Them And Make A Picture In Their Own Head.
Book
Writing
Ideas
All The Other Children At My School Are Stupid. Except I'm Not Meant To Call Them Stupid, Even Though This Is What They Are.
Children
Honesty
Stupid
And This Shows That Sometimes People Want To Be Stupid And They Do Not Want To Know The Truth.
Stupid
People
Want
Eventually Scientists Will Discover Something That Explains Ghosts, Just Like They Discovered Electricity, Which Explained Lightning, And It Might Be Something About People's Brains, Or Something About The Earth's Magnetic Field, Or It Might Be Some New Force Altogether. And Then Ghosts Won't Be Mysteries. They Will Be Like Electricity And Rainbows And Nonstick Frying Pans.
People
Rainbow
Brain
Jane Austen Writes About These Humdrum Lives With Such Empathy That They Seem Endlessly Fascinating
Writing
Empathy
Humdrum
Then He Asked If I Didn’t Like Things Changing. And I Said I Wouldn’t Mind Things Changing If I Became An Astronaut, For Example, Which Is One Of The Biggest Changes You Can Imagine, Apart From Becoming A Girl Or Dying.
Girl
Mind
Dying
I Knew There Was A Story; Once You Find A Dog With A Fork Through It, You Know There's A Story There.
Dog
Stories
Forks
...and I Went Into The Garden And Lay Down And Looked At The Stars In The Sky And Made Myself Negligible.
Stars
Garden
Sky
I Better Make The Plot Good. I Wanted To Make It Grip People On The First Page And Have A Big Turning Point In The Middle, As There Is, And Construct The Whole Thing Like A Bit Of A Roller Coaster Ride...
People
Plot
Pages
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.
Giving
Poetry Is
Wrapping
Things Can Be Funny When People Are Uneasy. It Softens Them Up And Stops Them Falling Asleep On The Sofa. I Like Those Moments Where People Half-smile And Half-wince.
Fall
People
Half
The Secret Of Contentment Lay In Ignoring Many Things Completely.
Secret
Contentment
Lays
When I Was Writing For Children, I Was Writing Genre Fiction. It Was Like Making A Good Chair. However Beautiful It Looked, It Needed Four Legs Of The Same Length, It Had To Be The Right Height And It Had To Be Comfortable.
Children
Writing
Fiction
And Then I Thought That I Had To Be Like Sherlock Holmes And I Had To Detach My Mind At Will To A Remarkable Degree So That I Did Not Notice How Much It Was Hurting Inside My Head.
Hurt
Mind
Degrees
From A Good Book, I Want To Be Taken To The Very Edge. I Want A Glimpse Into That Outer Darkness.
Book
Taken
Darkness
He Really Did Not Care Whether He Survived Or Not, So Long As It Rendered Him Unconscious And Absolved Him Of Responsibility.
Responsibility
Long
Care
At Teenage Parties He Was Always Wandering Into The Garden, Sitting On A Bench In The Dark . . . Staring Up At The Constellations And Pondering All Those Big Questions About The Existence Of God And The Nature Of Evil And The Mystery Of Death, Questions Which Seemed More Important Than Anything Else In The Would Until A Few Years Passed And Some Real Questions Had Been Dumped Into Your Lap, Like How To Earn A Living, And Why People Fell In And Out Of Love, And How Long You Could Carry On Smoking And Then Give Up Without Getting Lung Cancer.
Love
Teenage
Giving Up
I Thought Bill Bryson's A Short History Of Nearly Everything Was Remarkable. Managing To Be Entertaining While Still Delivering All That Hard Science Was A Pretty Good Trick To Pull Off.
Bills
Tricks
Remarkable
And When The Universe Has Finished Exploding All The Stars Will Slow Down, Like A Ball That Has Been Thrown Into The Air, And They Will Come To A Halt And They Will All Begin To Fall Towards The Centre Of The Universe Again. And Then There Will Be Nothing To Stop Us Seeing All The Stars In The World Because They Will All Be Moving Towards Us, Gradually Faster And Faster, And We Will Know That The World Is Going To End Soon Because When We Look Up Into The Sky At Night There Will Be No Darkness, Just The Blazing Light Of Billions And Billions Of Stars, All Falling.
Stars
Moving
Fall
I Think The U.k. Is Too Small To Write About From Within It And Still Make It Seem Foreign And Exotic And Interesting.
Travel
Writing
Thinking
And People Who Believe In God Think God Has Put Human Beings On Earth Because They Think Human Beings Are The Best Animal, But Human Beings Are Just An Animal And They Will Evolve Into Another Animal, And That Animal Will Be Cleverer And It Will Put Human Beings Into A Zoo, Like We Put Chimpanzees And Gorillas Into A Zoo. Or Human Beings Will All Catch A Disease And Die Out Or They Will Make Too Much Pollution And Kill Themselves, And Then There Will Only Be Insects In The World And They Will Be The Best Animal.
Zoos
Believe
Animal
If Kids Like A Picture Book, They're Going To Read It At Least 50 Times. Read Anything That Often, And Even Minor Imperfections Start To Feel Like Gravel In The Bed.
Book
Kids
Imperfection
Bore Children, And They Stop Reading. There's No Room For Self-indulgence Or Showing Off Or Setting The Scene.
Children
Reading
Self
With English Literature, If You Do A Bit Of Shonky Spelling, No One Dies, But If You're Half-way Through A Maths Calculation And You Stick In An Extra Zero, Everything Just Crashes Into The Ravine.
Zero
Math
Half
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.
Mean
Two
Fiction
And I Know I Can Do This Because I Went To London On My Own, And Because I Solved The Mystery…and I Was Brave And I Wrote A Book And That Means I Can Do Anything.
Book
Mean
Brave
I Find People Confusing.
People
Confusing
Madness Doesn't Happen To Someone Alone. Very Few People Have Experiences That Are Theirs Alone.
People
Madness
Happens
I Do Not Tell Lies. Mother Used To Say That This Was Because I Was A Good Person. But It Is Not Because I Am A Good Person. It Is Because I Do Not Tell Lie.
Mother
Lying
Good Person
Payments To The Disabled Are Getting Slashed And People Like Me Are Getting A Tax Cut. Who Could Possibly Think That Is A Good Thing?
Cutting
Thinking
People
Humour And High Seriousness... Perfect Bedfellows, I Think. Though I Usually Phrase It In Terms Of Comedy And Darkness. Comedy Without Darkness Rapidly Becomes Trivial. And Darkness Without Comedy Rapidly Becomes Unbearable.
Thinking
Perfect
Darkness
I Don't Remember Deciding To Become A Writer. You Decide To Become A Dentist Or A Postman. For Me, Writing Is Like Being Gay. You Finally Admit That This Is Who You Are, You Come Out And Hope That No One Runs Away.
Running
Writing
Gay
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.
Writing
Oddities
People
Sometimes We Get Sad About Things And We Don't Like To Tell Other People That We Are Sad About Them. We Like To Keep It A Secret. Or Sometimes, We Are Sad But We Really Don't Know Why We Are Sad, So We Say We Aren't Sad But We Really Are.
Sad
People
Secret
Family, That Slippery Word, A Star To Every Wandering Bark, And Everyone Sailing Under A Different Sky.
Stars
Sky
Sailing
It Wasn't About Believing This Or That, It Wasn't Even About Good And Evil And Right And Wrong, It Was About Finding The Strength To Bear The Discomfort That Came With Being In The World.
Believe
Evil
World
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