Mark Haddon Quotes

Interracial marriages were basically legalized, but nevertheless, there was a social stigma attached to them for a long time to come. I imagine that's going to be true for same-sex marriages - that people's emotional comfort level with it will not fully materialize for decades.

Everyone I know has attention deficit, and they say it with great pride. It's a bad time to be right.

Which goes to show you, you can make all the laws you want, but you cannot change people's ways. If you must change them, you have to understand that it will take a long time.

Every time I have visited the U.S., I have been asked to let loose my hair and remove the hair pins. Each time, I have put up a defiant face.

For those looking at me, meeting me for the first time, it is the body they see. I am labelled as disabled.

I'm aware that most people who meet me for the first time think of me in a certain way because of who my father is. That just comes with the territory. But that's been that way ever since I was a little kid as long as I can remember. I grew up that way.

I have been a reader of Science Fiction and Fantasy for a long time, since I was 11 or 12 I think, so I understand it and I'm not at all surprised that readers of the genre might enjoy my books.

I think there's a notion in our society, and it may be valid, that people aren't as funny when they get older. It's a stigma still attached to the rebelliousness of youth.

I didn't like some of the movies that were coming into me.

Let's just say, the American school of suburban angst is not my cup of tea.

I have been hung in effigy by the gay community for a long time, from when I was on President Reagan's first AIDS commission.

There are some professions that culturally and sociologically take a long time to change, and because of that, there's still sexism in comedy audiences. We shouldn't blame them: I do it too. A woman comes on, and I feel slightly anxious. I'm a woman in comedy, and I do that; I think everyone does.

When I realised that I had feelings for men as well as women, at first I was worried and frightened, and there was a certain amount of 'Who am I? Am I a criminal?' and so on. It took me a long time to come to terms with myself. Those were painful years - painful then and painful to look back on.

For a long time, I would go out of my way to have a personal appearance on the verge of an insane person, because it was closer to how I felt, but I looked so dumb. So, I just stopped. It was like, 'I'm just going to look like a banker.'

I have always been mainstream. It's so weird, because I don't see it as something negative at all. So many people see it as something negative.

The whole idea that what is not normal should be kept secret - that's really distasteful to me.

I will have a song that I'm in love with for a couple of months and then I'll go to something else. That's just constantly changing. And sometimes I will go back to old one that I haven't heard for a long time.

Once you get labelled, people expect you to behave within the very narrow confines of that label.

For a long time, sure, I was letting the pressure of being Rodney King get to me. It ain't easy. Even now, I walk into a place wondering, 'What people are thinking? Do they know who I am? What do they think about what happened? Do they blame me for the all those people who died?'

A lot of people say I'm bent, and I've heard it so many times that I've almost learned to accept it.

Three 6 Mafia have been around for a long time; we've made a lot of music. Anybody's music can influence anybody. I've heard people say that our music has influenced such and such, and it could be true, and it could not.

I had a difficult time hearing my own inner voice about what I wanted to be in this life, because there were all these perfect examples of what a man actually does. The notion is that he goes to college, gets married and provides. That's what a man does.

It is horrible to say, but I was stigmatized by being a bridal designer for a long time. I am amazed I have been able to move beyond it. I had really all but given up trying, but I did it because it was my lifelong dream.

My first collection was made from sheets that my grandmother, who lived in Normandy, had been collecting for a long time. There are a lot of flea markets in that part of France, and she knew what I liked.

Obviously you can't please everyone. I'm sure some people say, 'Bloody old Len Goodman gets on my nerves.'