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" 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

Related Quotes:

" Characters are the key to a good book. It took me several novels to comprehend that. "

Michael Morpurgo

Took

Key

" Always write your ideas down however silly or trivial they might seem. Keep a notebook with you at all times. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

" Paying more heed to the lessons of the past might teach us to be a little more cautious about some of the political decisions taken today. "

" 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. "

" You know, I really wish now I'd had the nerve to become an actor. Because I'd have been Robert Redford, no question. "

" As a young child my attention span was, as I remember it, rather short. "

" 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. "

" 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! "

" Only the best books are special. Why? Because they open our eyes, touch us, excite us, extend us. "

" 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

Lights

" Live an interesting life. Meet people. Read a lot and widely, learn from the great writers. "

" 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. "

" Books that kids read should be about what is going on in the world. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Don't worry about writing a book or getting famous or making money. Just lead an interesting life. "

" I write fiction. I make things up, it's what I do. "

Michael Morpurgo

Write

Fiction

" Something I learn every time I stand in front of a bunch of children, I learn never, never to underestimate them or patronise them. "

" 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. "

" I'm still not sure I want to be a writer. I think of myself as a storyteller more. "

Michael Morpurgo

Want

Writer

" I become my characters, and then try to allow events in the story to take their own course. I try not to play God, but to let them work out their own destiny. "

" 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. "

" Anything that gets children reading is fine. "

" Marry someone who flatters you. Because I've written 80 books since 'War Horse' but when my wife reads one, all she says is, 'It's quite good, but it's not as good as 'War Horse,' is it?' "