Top 40 Michael Morpurgo Quotes

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

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

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 fill up the well of stories in my head – without ever knowing I’m doing it.

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

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.

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

Some writers – most, I suspect – write in isolation. I think I’d always found that quite difficult.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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

With reading, I was very lucky. I had a mother who read to me, not because she had time – she was a busy woman – but she found 10 minutes to come and sit on my bed with a book.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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

To write something you have to feel it and know it, and that’s not comfortable.

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?’

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.