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" 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
Related Quotes:
" 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
" 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
" Only the best books are special. Why? Because they open our eyes, touch us, excite us, extend us. "
Michael Morpurgo
Touch
Best
Eyes
" 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 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
" 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
" 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
" As a young child my attention span was, as I remember it, rather short. "
Michael Morpurgo
Remember
Short
Attention
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" I write fiction. I make things up, it's what I do. "
Michael Morpurgo
Up
Write
Fiction
" I fill up the well of stories in my head - without ever knowing I'm doing it. "
Michael Morpurgo
Doing
Stories
Head
" 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
" 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
" 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
" Anything that gets children reading is fine. "
Michael Morpurgo
Fine
Children
Anything
" Books that kids read should be about what is going on in the world. "
Michael Morpurgo
World
Should
Kids
" 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
" Something I learn every time I stand in front of a bunch of children, I learn never, never to underestimate them or patronise them. "
Michael Morpurgo
Underestimate
Time
Stand
" I'm still not sure I want to be a writer. I think of myself as a storyteller more. "
Michael Morpurgo
Want
More
Writer
" 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
" 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
" It's the teacher that makes the difference, not the classroom. "
Michael Morpurgo
Difference
Makes
Teacher
" Characters are the key to a good book. It took me several novels to comprehend that. "
Michael Morpurgo
Took
Me
Key
" One of the great failings of our education system is that we tend to focus on those who are succeeding in exams, and there are plenty of them. But what we should also be looking at, and a lot more urgently, is those who fail. "
Michael Morpurgo
More
Focus
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