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" 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
Related Quotes:
" 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 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
" Anything that gets children reading is fine. "
Michael Morpurgo
Fine
Children
Anything
" 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
" Books that kids read should be about what is going on in the world. "
Michael Morpurgo
World
Should
Kids
" I was rather a poor student, too easily distracted - did a lot of gazing out of windows, fine for training to be a writer, but not a great way to achieve in the classroom. The truth is that I was happy to bumble along and do enough to avoid detention, but not much more. "
Michael Morpurgo
Great
Truth Is
Truth
" Admitting failure is quite cleansing, but never - pleasurable. "
Michael Morpurgo
Failure
Cleansing
Admitting
" You know, I really wish now I'd had the nerve to become an actor. Because I'd have been Robert Redford, no question. "
Michael Morpurgo
Know
You
Question
" 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
" 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
" 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
" I write fiction. I make things up, it's what I do. "
Michael Morpurgo
Up
Write
Fiction
" 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
" Access to books and the encouragement of the habit of reading: these two things are the first and most necessary steps in education and librarians, teachers and parents all over the country know it. It is our children's right and it is also our best hope and their best hope for the future. "
Michael Morpurgo
Future
Children
Best
" 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
" I really can't write fantasy. I cannot invent a world which does not exist. And I can't read fantasy either. As soon as I realise I'm reading a book that hasn't got its roots in a reality I can comprehend, I switch off. "
Michael Morpurgo
Reading
Book
World
" Write because you love it and not because it is something that you think you should do. Always write about something or somebody you know about - something that you feel deeply and passionately about. Never try and force it. "
Michael Morpurgo
Try
You
Feel
" 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
" If I'm serious, yes, I'd like to have done what Shakespeare did... to act and write. You learn so much from acting. One of our great writers, Alan Bennett, does both supremely well. When I write a story, I tend to speak it aloud as I'm writing it. "
Michael Morpurgo
Story
Writing
You
" Perhaps it is partly that we need to love books ourselves as parents, grandparents and teachers in order to pass on that passion for stories to our children. It's not about testing and reading schemes, but about loving stories and passing on that passion to our children. "
Michael Morpurgo
Love
Children
Loving
" With reading, I was very lucky. I had a mother who read to me, not because she had time - she was a busy woman - but she found 10 minutes to come and sit on my bed with a book. "
Michael Morpurgo
Time
Mother
Busy
" With all editing, no matter how sensitive - and I've been very lucky here - I react sulkily at first, but then I settle down and get on with it, and a year later I have my book in my hand. "
Michael Morpurgo
React
Settle
Matter
" Live an interesting life. Meet people. Read a lot and widely, learn from the great writers. "
Michael Morpurgo
Life
Live
People
" 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
" A lot of children, like I did, move away from words because of the fear - which is something you have to take out of education: the fear of worrying about what marks you'll get, detention, worrying about letting people down, your parents, teachers. "
Michael Morpurgo
Fear
Education
Children
" Don't worry about writing a book or getting famous or making money. Just lead an interesting life. "
Michael Morpurgo
Book
Writing
Money
" 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
" 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
" Strange questions are the more interesting ones. Children by and large don't try to trip you up... they want to find out how you do this funny thing that you do... if they've loved a story they love to know how it started. "
Michael Morpurgo
Children
Funny
Love