Mark Haddon

Mr. Jeavons said that I was a very clever boy.
I said that I wasn't clever. I was just noticing how things were, and that wasn't clever. That was just being observant.

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.

I said that you could still want something that is very unlikely to happen.

the chimney and into the air and sometimes I look up into the sky and I think that there are molecules of Mother up there, or in clouds over Africa or the Antarctic, or coming down as rain in the rain forests in Brazil, or in snow somewhere.

But Mother was cremated. This means that she was put into a coffin and burned and ground up and turned into ash and smoke. I do not know what happens to the ash and I couldn’t ask at the crematorium because I didn’t go to the funeral. But the smoke goes out of

And what he meant was that maths wasn’t like life because in life there are no straightforward answers at the end.

And what he meant was that maths wasn’t like life because in life there are no straightforward answers at the end.

It’s bloody hard telling the truth all the time. Sometimes it’s impossible.

And also, a thing is interesting because of thinking about it and not because of being new.

he dog was called Wellington. It belonged to Mrs. Shears, who was our friend. She lived on the opposite side of the road, two houses to the left.