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" 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. "

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" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

Michael Morpurgo

Write

Fiction

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

" Children have to be motivated to want to learn to read. Reading must not be taught simply as a school exercise. "

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

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

" Read a lot - poems, prose, stories, newspapers, anything. Read books and poems that you think you will like and some that you think might not be for you. You might be surprised. "

" I got married young, far too young, but it is fine. We are still married 48 years later. I got married at 19. "

" 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 notion for a story is for me a confluence of real events, historical perhaps, or from my own memory to create an exciting fusion. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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?' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

Michael Morpurgo

Took

Key

" 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. "

" There is the myth that writing books for children is easier than writing books for grownups, whereas we know that truly great books for children are works of genius, whether it's 'Alice in Wonderland' or the 'Gruffalo' or 'Northern Lights.' When it's a great book, it's a great book, whether it's for children or not. "

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

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

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

Michael Morpurgo

Want

Writer

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

" 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. "

" Wherever my story takes me, however dark and difficult the theme, there is always some hope and redemption, not because readers like happy endings, but because I am an optimist at heart. I know the sun will rise in the morning, that there is a light at the end of every tunnel. "

" 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. "

" 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. "