Chapter 2 Quotes

The dog was dead. There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog. (Christopher Boone) Chapter 2

Chapter 3 Quotes

My name is Christopher John Francis Boone. I know all the countries of the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7,507. Chapter 3

I got Siobhan to draw lots of these faces and then write down next to them exactly what they meant. I kept the piece of paper in my pocket and took it out when I didn’t understand what someone was saying. But it was very difficult to decide which of the diagrams was most like the face they were making because people’s faces move very quickly. Chapter 3

Chapter 5 Quotes

I like dogs. You always know what a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad, cross and concentrating. Chapter 5

Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk. Chapter 5

I do not like people shouting at me. It makes me scared that they are going to hit me or touch me and I do not know what is going to happen. Chapter 5

Chapter 7 Quotes

Siobhan said that the book should begin with something to grab people’s attention. That is why I started with the dog. I also started with the dog because it happened to me and I find it hard to imagine things which did not happen to me. Chapter 7

Chapter 11 Quotes

I like policemen, too, and I wanted to answer the question properly, but the policeman did not give me enough time to work out the correct answer. Chapter 11

Then the police arrived. I like the police. They have uniforms and numbers and you know what they are meant to be doing. Chapter 11

Chapter 13 Quotes

This will not be a funny book. I cannot tell jokes because I do not understand them. Chapter 13

Chapter 17 Quotes

This made me feel a lot calmer because it is what policemen say on television and in films. Chapter 17

Chapter 19 Quotes

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. (Christopher Boone) Chapter 19

Chapter 23 Quotes

I was also wearing my watch and they wanted me to leave this at the desk as well but I said that I needed to keep my watch on because I needed to know exactly what time it was. And when they tried to take it off me I screamed, so they let me keep it on. Chapter 23

It was nice in the police cell. Chapter 23

Chapter 29 Quotes

Mother used to say that 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. Chapter 29

Chapter 31 Quotes

He held up his right hand and spread his fingers out in a fan. I held up my left hand and spread my fingers out in a fan and we made our fingers and thumbs touch each other. (Christopher Boone) Chapter 31

Chapter 37 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. Chapter 37
A lie is when you say something happened with 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. Chapter 37

Chapter 41 Quotes

Father said, ‘Just try and keep your nose out of other people’s business.’ Chapter 41

I said, ‘Yes, I was listening to what you were saying, but when someone gets murdered you have to find out who did it so that they can be punished.’
And he said, ‘It’s a bloody dog, Christopher, a bloody dog.’
I replied, ‘I think dogs are important, too. Chapter 41

Chapter 43 Quotes

Mother died 2 years ago. Chapter 43

Father said, ‘I’m afraid you won’t be seeing your mother for a while.’
He didn’t look at me when he said this. He kept on looking through the window. 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. But this was nice, having Father speak to me but not look at me. Chapter 43

Chapter 47 Quotes

Terry, who is the older brother of Francis, who is at the school, said I would only ever get a job collecting supermarket trollies or cleaning out donkey shit at an animal sanctuary and they didn’t let spazzers drive rockets that cost billions of pounds. Chapter 47

But there were other ways of putting things in a nice order. And that was why I had Good Days and Black Days. Chapter 47

Chapter 53 Quotes

Father said that he didn’t know what kind of heart attack she had and now wasn’t the moment to be asking questions like that.
I said that it was probably an aneurysm. Chapter 53

And Father was sitting down and she stood next to him and held his head against her bosoms and said, ‘Come on, Ed. We’re going to get you through this.’ (Mrs Shears) Chapter 53

Chapter 59 Quotes

And this is because when people tell you what to do it is usually confusing and does not make sense. Chapter 59

When I got home I said hello to Father and went upstairs and fed Toby, my rat, and felt happy because I was being a detective and finding things out. Chapter 59

Chapter 61 Quotes

I said that there wasn’t anything outside the universe and there wasn’t another kind of place altogether. Except that there might be if you went through a black hole… Chapter 61

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. Chapter 61

Chapter 67 Quotes

I do not like strangers because I do not like people I have never met before. They are hard to understand. It is like being in France, which is where we went on holiday sometimes when mother was alive, to camp. Chapter 67

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. Chapter 67

And sometimes Mrs. Shears stayed overnight at our house and I liked it when she did because she made things tidy and she arranged the jars and pans and tins in order of their height on the shelves in the kitchen and she always made their labels face outwards and she put the knives and forks and spoons in the correct compartments in the cutlery drawer. Chapter 67

Chapter 71 Quotes

I am going to prove that I’m not stupid. Next month I’m going to take my A level in maths and I’m going to get an A grade. (Christopher Boone) Chapter 71
Chapter 73

Chapter 73 Quotes

These are some of my Behavioural Problems
A. Not talking to people for a long time …
K. Not noticing that people are angry with me. Chapter 73

Sometimes Father would say, ‘Christopher, if you do not behave I swear I shall knock the living daylights out of you,’ or Mother would say, ‘Jesus, Christopher, I am seriously considering putting you into a home,’ or Mother would say, ‘You are going to drive me into an early grave.’ Chapter 73

Chapter 79 Quotes

I could see that Father was angry with me, so I said, ‘I know you told me not to get involved in other people’s business but Mrs. Shears is a friend of ours.’
And Father said, ‘Well, she’s not a friend anymore.’ Chapter 79

Chapter 83 Quotes

I think I would make a very good astronaut. To be a good astronaut you have to be intelligent and I’m intelligent. Chapter 83

Sometimes when I want to be on my own I get into the airing cupboard in the bathroom and slide in beside the boiler and pull the door behind me and sit there and think for hours and it makes me feel very calm. Chapter 83

Chapter 89 Quotes

And she said that was like life, and not all murders were solved and not all murderers were caught. Like Jack the Ripper. I said I didn’t like the idea that the murderer was still At Large. I said I didn’t like to think that the person who killed Wellington could be living somewhere nearby and I might meet him when I went out for a walk at night. Chapter 89

Chapter 97 Quotes

So because it was a Super Good Day I decided to walk into the park with Mrs. Alexander even though it scared me. Chapter 97

And she said, ‘No, Christopher. I’m not sure that you do. I mean that they were very good friends. Very, very good friends.’ (Mrs Alexander to Christopher) Chapter 97

Chapter 101 Quotes

And this shows that intuition can sometimes get things wrong. And intuition is what people use in life to make decisions. But logic can help you work out the right answer. It also shows that Mr. Jeavons was wrong and numbers are sometimes very complicated and not very straightforward at all. Chapter 101

Chapter 103 Quotes

I don’t like it when Rhodri laughs at me. Rhodri laughs at me a lot. Father says it is being friendly. Chapter 103

Chapter 107 Quotes

And I don’t know what ‘some hardness, perhaps of eye’ means, and I’m not interested in faces. Chapter 107

‘The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.’
But he notices them, like I do. Also it says in the book:
‘Sherlock Holmes had, in a very remarkable degree, the power of detaching his mind at will.’And this is like me, too, because if I get really interested in something, like practicing maths, or reading a book about the Apollo missions or great white sharks, I don’t notice anything else and Father can be calling me to come and eat my supper and I won’t hear him. Chapter 107

Chapter 109 Quotes

And I replied, ‘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.’ Chapter 109

Chapter 113 Quotes

My memory is like a film. Chapter 113

Other people have pictures in their heads, too. But they are different because the pictures in my head are all pictures of things which really happened. But other people have pictures in their heads of things which aren’t real and didn’t happen. Chapter 113

Chapter 127 Quotes

This is what Siobhan says is called a rhetorical question. It has a question mark at the end, but you are not meant to answer it because the person who is asking it already knows the answer. It is difficult to spot a rhetorical question. Chapter 127

I found it hard to work out what to say because I was starting to get scared and confused. Chapter 127

Father had never grabbed hold of me like that before. Mother had hit me sometimes because she was a very hot-tempered person, …. But Father was a more levelheaded person, .. he didn’t get angry as quickly and he didn’t shout as often. So I was very surprised when he grabbed me. Chapter 127

Chapter 131 Quotes

Mrs Forbes said that hating yellow and brown is just being silly. And Siobhan said that she shouldn’t say things like that and everyone has favourite colours. And Siobhan was right. But Mrs Forbes was a bit right, too. Chapter 131

Chapter 137 Quotes

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 […] always tells me the truth, which means that he loves me. Chapter 137

Chapter 139 Quotes

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. Chapter 139

Chapter 149 Quotes

I started by looking in the kitchen. My book was approximately 25 cm x 35 cm x 1 cm so it couldn’t be hidden in a very small place, which meant that I didn’t have to look in any really small places. Chapter 149

I wondered whether I should open the envelope because it was something I had taken from Father’s room. But then I reasoned that it was addressed to me so it belonged to me so it was OK to open it. Chapter 149

And then I thought that perhaps it wasn’t a letter from Mother. Perhaps it was a letter to another person called Christopher, from that Christopher’s mother. I was excited. When I started writing my book there was only one mystery I had to solve. Now there were two. Chapter 149

Chapter 151 Quotes

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. Chapter 151

Chapter 157 Quotes

Then I stopped reading the letter because I felt sick. Mother had not had a heart attack. Mother had not died. Mother had been alive all the time. And Father had lied about this. (Christopher Boone) Chapter 157

And it was strange because he was calling, ‘Christopher…? Christopher…?’ and I could see my name written out as he was saying it. […] I could see it written really large, like it was on a big advert on the side of a bus. And it was in my mother’s handwriting […] Chapter 157

Then he said, ‘I did it for your good, Christopher. Honestly I did. I never meant to lie.’ Chapter 157

And I think that was when I realized you and your father were probably better off if I wasn’t living in the house. Then he would only have one person to look after instead of two. (Mrs Boone in a letter) Chapter 157

Chapter 163 Quotes

But the mind is just a complicated machine. Chapter 163

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. Chapter 167

Chapter 167 Quotes

OK, maybe I don’t tell the truth all the time. God knows, I try, Christopher, God knows I do, but… Life is difficult, you know. It’s bloody hard telling the truth all the time. Sometimes it’s impossible. And I want to know that I’m trying, I really am. Chapter 167

I had to get out of the house. Father had murdered Wellington, That meant he could murder me, because I couldn’t trust him, even though he had said ‘Trust me,’ because he had told a lie about a big thing. (Christopher Boone) Chapter 167

And then I knew it wasn’t a joke and I was really frightened. Chapter 167

Chapter 173 Quotes

And anyway, Orion is not a hunter or a coffee maker or a dinosaur. It is just Betelgeuse and Bellatrix and Alnilam and Rigel and 17 other stars I don’t know the names of. And they are nuclear explosions billions of miles away. And that is the truth. Chapter 173

Chapter 179 Quotes

And then I realized that there was nothing I could do which felt safe. Chapter 179

And then I Formulated a Plan. And that made me feel better because there was something in my head that had an order and a pattern and I just had to follow the instructions one after the other. Chapter 179

Chapter 181 Quotes

But most people are lazy. They never look at everything. They do what is called glancing which is the same word for bumping off something carrying on in the same direction… But if I am standing in a field in the countryside I notice everything. Chapter 181

Chapter 191 Quotes

And I wanted to go home but I was frightened of going home and I tried to make a plan of what I should do in my head but there were too many things to look at and too many things to hear. Chapter 191

Chapter 193 Quotes

When I used to play with my train set I made a train timetable because I liked timetables. And I like timetables because I like to know when everything is going to happen. Chapter 193

And this means that time is a mystery, and not even a thing, and no one has ever solved the puzzle of what time is, exactly. And so, if you get lost in time it is like being lost in a desert, except that you can’t see the desert because it is not a thing. And this is why I like timetables, because they make sure you don’t get lost in time. Chapter 193

Chapter 197 Quotes

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. Chapter 197

And he said, ‘We’ve got your father at the police station.’ And I thought he was going to say that they had arrested Father for killing Wellington, but he didn’t. He said, ‘He’s looking for you.’
And I said, ‘I know.’ Chapter 197

Chapter 199 Quotes

And people who believe in God think God has put human beings on the 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. Chapter 199

Chapter 211 Quotes

So I took out my Swiss Army knife.
And he said, ‘Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa,’ and held up both his hands with his fingers stretched out in a fan, like he wanted me to stretch my fingers out in a fan and touch his fingers because he wanted to say he loved me, but he did it with both hands, not one like Father and Mother, and I didn’t know who he was. Chapter 211
And I thought, ‘I can do this,’ because I was doing really well and I was in London and I would find my mother. And I had to think to myself, ‘The people are like cows in a field,’ and I just had to look in front of me all the time and make a red line along the floor in the picture of the big room in my head and follow it. Chapter 211

Chapter 223 Quotes

And Siobhan says people go on holidays to see new things and relax, but it wouldn’t make me relaxed and you can see new things by looking at earth under a microscope or drawing the shape of the solid made when 3 circular rods of equal thickness intersect at right angles. Chapter 223

Chapter 227 Quotes

And then the next train came I wasn’t so scared anymore because the sign said TRAIN APPROACHING so I knew it was going to happen. Chapter 227

And if she was a teacher at school I could have said, ‘Where is 451c Chapter Road, Willesden, London NW2 5NG?’ but she was a stranger, so I said, ‘Stand further away,’ because I didn’t like her being so close. Chapter 227

And then, after a while, she said, ‘Christopher, let me hold your hand. Just for once. Just for me. Will you? I won’t hold it hard,’ and she held out her hand.
And I said, ‘I don’t like people holding my hand.’ (Christopher and his mother) Chapter 227

Chapter 229 Quotes

And eventually there is no one left in the world except people who don’t look at other people’s faces and who don’t know what these pictures mean […] Chapter 229

Chapter 233 Quotes

‘Let’s call it…let’s call it a project. A project we have to do together. You have to spend more time with me. And I…I have to show you that you can trust me.’ (Ed Boone) Chapter 233

And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery of Who Killed Wellington? And I found my mother and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything. (Christopher Boone) Chapter 233

And he said, ‘Just… thank you. Then he said, “I’m very proud of you, Christopher. Very proud.’ Chapter 233