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" Characters are the key to a good book. It took me several novels to comprehend that. "
Michael Morpurgo
Took
Me
Key
Related Quotes:
" It is really important that focusing on things such as spelling, punctuation, grammar and handwriting doesn't inhibit the creative flow. When I was at school there was a huge focus on copying and testing and it put me off words and stories for years. "
Michael Morpurgo
Words
Focus
Flow
" War continues to divide people, to change them forever, and I write about it both because I want people to understand the absolute futility of war, the 'pity of war' as Wilfred Owen called it. "
Michael Morpurgo
Understand
War
Want
" Remember to write for yourself, not for a market and give yourself time to develop your own style, your own voice. It takes a lifetime. Enjoy it! "
Michael Morpurgo
Time
Style
Yourself
" When I sit down I write very fast... if I haven't finished a book in two or three months then I think it's not going well. "
Michael Morpurgo
Two
Down
Fast
" Children have to be motivated to want to learn to read. Reading must not be taught simply as a school exercise. "
Michael Morpurgo
School
Reading
Children
" It gives me confidence to know that what I'm writing has a veracity of its own without me having to invent it. When I'm writing fiction, I must believe it to be true, or I can see no point in it. "
Michael Morpurgo
Writing
Believe
Confidence
" I was brought up, as a lot of kids are, on 'Aesop's Fables,' 'Brothers Grimm,' 'La Fontaine,' all those sorts of things. Hans Christian Andersen is a hero of mine. "
Michael Morpurgo
Hero
Mine
Up
" It is the child's understanding that teaches the adults the way of the future. They're still doing it today with modern technology. "
Michael Morpurgo
Child
Today
Doing
" When I was very little my mother would read to me in bed. She gave me a fascination for stories, and for the music in words. "
Michael Morpurgo
Music
Mother
Bed
" We all know that the great memories of our childhood are the little triumphs - it doesn't really matter whether that was in writing, art, on the hockey field or on the football field. It's something that makes you feel - 'I can do this stuff.' "
Michael Morpurgo
Football
Memories
Know
" Only the best books are special. Why? Because they open our eyes, touch us, excite us, extend us. "
Michael Morpurgo
Touch
Best
Eyes
" The most important thing is to live an interesting life. Keep your eyes, ears and heart open. Talk to people and visit interesting places, and don't forget to ask questions. To be a writer you need to drink in the world around you so it's always there in your head. "
Michael Morpurgo
People
Eyes
World
" The big relationships you make in your life are with those that you love and if things do go wrong then it's a source of great pain and that lasts. "
Michael Morpurgo
Pain
Wrong
You
" Books that kids read should be about what is going on in the world. "
Michael Morpurgo
World
Should
Kids
" Animals are sentient, intelligent, perceptive, funny and entertaining. We owe them a duty of care as we do to children. "
Michael Morpurgo
Pet
Animals
Care
" Everyone is interested in war, in that people don't want it to happen. I'm much more interested in peace than in war but it's important to understand why we fight. "
Michael Morpurgo
War
People
Peace
" You get to about 65 or 70 and you lose friends and the world does seem to be an endlessly difficult place and tragic place, so it's more and more difficult for me to find the bright lights. "
Michael Morpurgo
World
Me
Lights
" I was an overly young father, is the most polite way of putting it. I think I was rather immature and all I can say is that I think I've made a much better grandfather... I don't think I was ready to be a father to be honest. "
Michael Morpurgo
Better
Think
Say
" When children are very young, you read them books that are positive to help them go to sleep. But there comes a moment when they begin to understand the difficulties of the world. They know there are problems and the books they read should reflect that, not gloss over them. "
Michael Morpurgo
Children
Sleep
World
" It's good to focus on the universal suffering that goes on in any war. Whatever the right and wrongs of the war, there is always universal suffering. "
Michael Morpurgo
War
Always
Focus
" By the time I sit down and face the blank page I am raring to go. I tell it as if I'm talking to my best friend or one of my grandchildren. "
Michael Morpurgo
I Am
Time
Friend
" As a young child my attention span was, as I remember it, rather short. "
Michael Morpurgo
Remember
Short
Attention
" When I write I try as far as possible to forget I'm writing it at all. I tell it down onto the page, as if I'm telling it to one person only, my best friend. "
Michael Morpurgo
Page
Writing
Best
" I was never a great reader, but there were two stories I loved best: Kipling's 'The Elephant's Child' and 'The Jungle Book.' Deep down, I've always wanted to write a book about a wild child and an elephant. "
Michael Morpurgo
Elephant
Best
Child
" It's the teacher that makes the difference, not the classroom. "
Michael Morpurgo
Difference
Makes
Teacher
" A notion for a story is for me a confluence of real events, historical perhaps, or from my own memory to create an exciting fusion. "
Michael Morpurgo
Story
Own
My Own
" When I was growing up in the Forties and Fifties, you could hide your children from the difficulties of life, but today you can't separate children's contact with the adult world today. "
Michael Morpurgo
Growing Up
Today
Life
" Live an interesting life. Meet people. Read a lot and widely, learn from the great writers. "
Michael Morpurgo
Life
Live
People
" Much that is great in literature is an acquired taste, and you have to acquire it in the first place. Our job as parents is essentially to pass on the enthusiasm we had for the things we loved. That's how we'll get them to fall in love with reading in the first place and, hopefully, to stay in love with it. "
Michael Morpurgo
Fall
Reading
Great
" I got married young, far too young, but it is fine. We are still married 48 years later. I got married at 19. "
Michael Morpurgo
Still
Years
Fine