Frases de Mark Haddon

“Es mejor saber que una cosa buena va a pasar, como un eclipse, o que te regalen un microscopio por Navidad, que saber que una cosa mala va a pasar, como que te pongan un empaste o tener que ir a Francia. Pero creo que lo peor de todo es no saber si lo que va a pasar es una cosa buena o una cosa mala.”

“Una mentira es cuando dices que ha pasado algo que no ha pasado. Pero siempre es una sola cosa la que pasa en un momento determinado y en un sitio determinado. Y hay un número infinito de cosas que no han pasado en ese momento y en ese sitio”

“Y la gente que cree en Dios piensa que Dios ha puesto seres humanos en la Tierra porque piensa que los seres humanos son el mejor animal, pero los seres humanos sólo son un animal y evolucionarán hasta ser otro animal, y ese animal será más listo y meterá a los seres humanos en un zoo, como nosotros metemos a los chimpancés y a los gorilas en el zoo.”

“Y es porque hay algo que no pueden ver que la gente cree que tiene que ser especial, porque la gente siempre piensa que hay algo especial en lo que no puede ver, como el lado oculto de la Luna, o el otro lado de un agujero negro, o en la oscuridad cuando se despierta por la noche y tiene miedo.”

“porque cuando nos hablan del Peligro que suponen los Desconocidos en el colegio dicen que si un hombre se te acerca y te habla y te da miedo debes buscar a una señora y correr hacia ella, porque las señoras son más seguras.”

“Los niños de mi colegio son estúpidos. Pero se supone que no he de llamarlos estúpidos, ni siquiera aunque sea eso lo que son. Se supone que he de decir que tienen dificultades de aprendizaje o que tienen necesidades especiales.”

“Charlar un poco es sólo ser simpático, ¿no?
—Yo no sé charlar —dije.”

“Buen chico.
Y yo dije:
—Gracias por la cena —porque eso es ser educado.”

“Bueno, ¿cómo te va, capitán?
Y yo dije:
—Me va muy bien, gracias —que es lo que se supone que tienes que decir.”

“La gente habla mucho sin utilizar ninguna palabra.”

“Y cuando miramos las cosas pensamos que estamos simplemente mirándolas desde nuestros ojos como si mirásemos a través de pequeñas ventanas y que hay una persona dentro de nuestra cabeza, pero no es así. Estamos mirando una pantalla dentro de nuestra cabeza, como la pantalla de un ordenador.”

“A mí me gustan los horarios, porque son la garantía de que no te vas a perder en el tiempo.”

“En la biblia dice 《no matarás》, pero hubo unas cruzadas y dos guerras mundiales y la guerra del Golfo y en todas ellas hubo cristianos que mataban gente”

“Leer es fundamentalmente un síntoma. De una imaginación saludable, de nuestro interés en este y otros mundos, de nuestra capacidad para estar callados e inmóviles, también para soñar despiertos”

“Los números primos son útiles para crear códigos y en Estados Unidos los consideran Material Militar y si descubres uno de más de 100 dígitos tienes que decírselo a la CIA y te lo compran por 10.000 dólares. Pero no sería una forma demasiado buena de ganarse la vida.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I want my name to mean me.”

“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.”

“… and there was nothing to do except to wait and to hurt.”

“Metaphors are lies.”

“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.”

“I find people confusing.”

“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.”

“Everyone has learning difficulties, because learning to speak French or understanding relativity is difficult.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Being clever was when you looked at how things were and used the evidence to work out something new.”

“… and I went into the garden and lay down and looked at the stars in the sky and made myself negligible.”

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

“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.”

“Siobhan says that if you raise one eyebrow it can means lots of different things. It can mean 'I want to do sex with you' and it can also mean 'I think what you just said was very stupid.”

“And this shows that sometimes people want to be stupid and they do not want to know the truth.”

“Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.”

“You love someone, you've got to let something go.”

“I like it when it rains hard. It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silence but not empty.”

“I do not like strangers because I do not like people I have never met before. They are hard to understand.”

“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.”

“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.”

“… why I like timetables, because they make sure I don't get lost in time.”