The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Quotes

“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 can’t tell lies.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“A lie is when you say something happened which didn’t happen. But there is only ever one thing which happened at a particular time and a particular place. And there are an infinite number of things which didn’t happen at that time and that place. And if I think about something which didn’t happen I start thinking about all the other things which didn’t happen. For example, this morning for breakfast I had Ready Brek and some hot raspberry milk shake. But if I say that I actually had Shreddies and a mug of tea*3 I start thinking about Coco Pops and lemonade and porridge and Dr Pepper and how I wasn’t eating my breakfast in Egypt and there wasn’t a rhinoceros in the room and Father wasn’t wearing a diving suit and so on and even writing this makes me feel shaky and scared, like I do when I’m standing on the top of a very tall building and there are thousands of houses and cars and people below me and my head is so full of all these things that I’m afraid that I’m going to forget to stand up straight and hang on to the rail and I’m going to fall over and be killed.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“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. And then he held up his right hand and spread his fingers out in a fan, and I held up my left hand and spread my fingers out in a fan and we made our fingers and thumbs touch each other.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“But feelings are just having a picture on the screen in your head of what is going to happen tomorrow or next year, or what might have happened instead of what did happen, and if it is a happy picture they smile and if it is a sad picture they cry.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“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 your life it is nice to think that they are what is called negligible, which means that they are so small you don’t have to take them into account when you are calculating something.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“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.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“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 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.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“What would your mother think about that?” which is stupid because Mother is dead and you can’t say anything to people who are dead and dead people can’t think.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“And also, a thing is interesting because of thinking about it and not because of being new.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“I didn’t reply to this either because Mrs. Alexander was doing what is called chatting, where people say things to each other which aren’t questions and answers and aren’t connected.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“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.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“The Hound of the Baskervilles because it is a detective story which means that there are clues and Red Herrings.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“I do not want my name to mean a story about being kind and helpful. I want my name to mean me.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“Also people think they’re not computers because they have feelings and computers don’t have feelings. But feelings are just having a picture on the screen in your head of what is going to happen tomorrow or next year, or what might have happened instead of what did happen, and if it is a happy picture they smile and if it is a sad picture they cry.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“Nemám rád normální romány. V normálních románech lidi říkají věci jako: „Jsem protkána železem, stříbrem a žilkami usazenin. Nedokážu se sevřít v tvrdou pěst, již zatínají ti, kteří jsou nezávislí. “Co to znamená? Nevím. Neví to ani táta. Ani Siobhan, ani pan Jeavons. Ptal jsem se jich.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“Prvočísla jsou to, co zbyde, když odstraníte všechna pravidla. Já myslím, že prvočísla jsou jako život. Jsou velmi logická, ale pravidla pro ně nevymyslíte, ani kdybyste nad nimi strávili všechen čas.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“Lidi například často řeknou „Buď zticha, “neřeknou vám ale, jak dlouho máte být zticha.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“Odešel jsem nahoru a seděl u sebe v pokoji a díval se, jak na ulici leje. Lilo tak strašně, že to vypadalo jako bílé jiskry (a tohle je přirovnání, ne metafora).”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“A možná je lehčí žít sám a starat se jen o nějakýho pitomýho voříška, než žít společně s jinými lidmi.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“meterme en líos”
― Mark Haddon, El curioso incidente del perro a medianoche

“... a veces las cosas son tan complicadas que es imposible predecir qué va a pasar a continuación, pero en realidad obedecen a unas reglas muy sencillas.
Y eso significa que, a veces, una población entera de ranas, o de gusanos, o de gente, puede morir sin razón alguna, sólo porque así es como funcionan los números.”
― Mark Haddon, El curioso incidente del perro a medianoche

“has”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“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.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“Существует множество таинственных вещей. Но это не значит, что у них нет объяснения. Это значит лишь, что ученые пока не нашли им объяснения.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“Самое лучшее – это когда знаешь, что должно произойти что-то хорошее. Например, что случится затмение или что на Рождество тебе подарят микроскоп. И плохо, если ты знаешь, что должны произойти неприятные вещи. Например, что нужно идти к зубному врачу или ехать во Францию. Но я думаю, еще хуже – это когда не знаешь, чту именно должно случиться: плохое или хорошее?”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“O los seres humanos cogerán todos una enfermedad y se extinguirán o producirán demasiada contaminación y se matarán a ellos mismos, y entonces sólo habrá insectos en el mundo y ellos serán el mejor animal.”
― Mark Haddon, El curioso incidente del perro a medianoche

“Just think about today. Think about things that have happened. Especially about good things that have happened.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“Because time is only the relationship between the way different things change, like the earth going round the sun and atoms vibrating and clocks ticking and day and night and waking up and going to sleep,”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“Una cosa es interesante porque pensamos en ella, no porque sea nueva.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

“It’s bloody hard telling the truth all the time.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time