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" 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?' "

Michael Morpurgo

You

Wife

War

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

Michael Morpurgo

Want

Writer

" I fill up the well of stories in my head - without ever knowing I'm doing it. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Anything that gets children reading is fine. "

" Admitting failure is quite cleansing, but never - pleasurable. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

" It's the teacher that makes the difference, not the classroom. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

Michael Morpurgo

Took

Key

" 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. "

" 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

Focus

Great

" 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. "

" It is the child's understanding that teaches the adults the way of the future. They're still doing it today with modern technology. "

" Some writers - most, I suspect - write in isolation. I think I'd always found that quite difficult. "

" I think there's something about studying a book which will kill it if you're not careful. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "