Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 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

Related Quotes:

" 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

" 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

" Animals are sentient, intelligent, perceptive, funny and entertaining. We owe them a duty of care as we do to children. "

Michael Morpurgo

" 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. "

Michael Morpurgo

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

Michael Morpurgo

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

Michael Morpurgo

" 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. "

Michael Morpurgo

" 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

" 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

" 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

" Encouraging young people to believe in themselves and find their own voice whether it's through writing, drama or art is so important in giving young people a sense of self-worth. "

Michael Morpurgo

" 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

" 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

" 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

" 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. "

Michael Morpurgo

" 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

" 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

" 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

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

Michael Morpurgo

" 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! "

Michael Morpurgo

" 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. "

Michael Morpurgo

" 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

" 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

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

Michael Morpurgo

" 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

" 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

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

Michael Morpurgo

" 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. "

Michael Morpurgo

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

Michael Morpurgo

" 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