Michael Morpurgo's Quotes

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.

Our great problem, is that children now know whatever they want to know - at the press of a button they can discover all horrors of the adult world. They know very early on that the world is sometimes a very dark, difficult and complex place, and the literature they read must reflect that. Otherwise we're just entertaining them to pass the time.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We all know that the great memories of our childhood are the little triumphs - it doesn't really matter whether that was in writing, art, on the hockey field or on the football field. It's something that makes you feel - 'I can do this stuff.'

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Admitting failure is quite cleansing, but never - pleasurable.

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

Anything that gets children reading is fine.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Only the best books are special. Why? Because they open our eyes, touch us, excite us, extend us.

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.