Michael Morpurgo Quotes

Stories make you think and dream; books make you want to ask questions.

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.

There's a nobility in his eye, a regal serenity about him. Does he not personify all that men try to be and never can be?

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Being his real brother I could feel I live in his shadows, but I never have and I do not now. I live in his glow.

I can hate you more, but I'll never love you less.

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

Anything that gets children reading is fine.

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

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

Genuinely good people are like that. The sun shines out of them. They warm you right through.

Admitting failure is quite cleansing, but never - pleasurable.

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

What's really good is that there are people making stories and writing them and the vast majority never see the light of day and it doesn't matter a fig.

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.

But I didn’t dare. That has always been my trouble. I’ve never dared enough.

There's room for all sorts of magic and miracles in this world - that's what I think.

Wars become history all too soon and are forgotten all too soon as well, before the lessons can be learned.

We have bodies coming home and coffins covered in flags, not just in the UK but world-wide.

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

Like most writers, I sit in a room and scribble a story and you don't have a connection with the people who take your story, whether it be to the stage or to the screen.

Blind terror drove me on, with my flying stirrups whipping me into a frenzy. With no rider to carry I reached the kneeling riflemen first and they scattered as I came upon them.

Any problem can be solved between people if only they can trust each other

I could believe only in the hell I was living in, a hell on earth, and it was man-made, not God-made.

cause when there's life there's still hope

If I learned anything in this life, I've learned that you can't cling on.

He never reckoned much to schooling and that. He said you could learn most what was worth knowing from keeping your eyes and ears peeled. Best way of learning, he always said, was doing.

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

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.

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

If it is possible to be happy in the middle of a nightmare, then Topthorn and I were happy that summer.

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 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.

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.

It's what I'll be singing in the morning. It won't be God Save the Ruddy King or All Things bleeding Bright and Beautiful. It'll be Orange and Lemons for Big Joe, for all of us.

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

We're much alike, bee, you and me," I said. "You may carry your pack underneath you and your rifle may stick out of your bottom. But you and me, bee, are much alike.

I don't want to be separate from something that's important to me.

Any story you write about war, or film you make about war, is bound to be political whether you like it or not.

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.

That's what this war is all about, my friend. It's about which of us is the crazier.And clearly you British have an advantage.You were crazy beforehand.

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.

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

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

My Albert married his Maisie Brown as he said he would. But I think she never took to me, nor I to her for that matter. Perhaps it was a feeling of mutual jealousy.