Morris Gleitzman Quotes & Sayings

“I like to write stories where young people have a strong feeling about something being fair or unfair, right or wrong, cruel or kind, and they act on the basis of that - often in the face of the prevailing limits of behaviour.”

“Children know when they are being sold a sanitised version of the world, and I think that's a betrayal of the relationship between author and reader.”

“I discovered you can get closer to a character's thoughts and feelings in a book than in a film.”

“I would never write stories with only despair and defeat and the dark side of life.”

“Melbourne is my type of city, much more so than Sydney.”

“Because kids are physically smaller, there's an assumption by people who haven't read a kids' book for a long time that their ideas and themes and problems and ambitions must be commensurately smaller and less important. I would venture that sometimes the opposite is true.”

“Children have limited power to shape their own lives, but when they can experiment with possibilities through books, their optimism can be recharged and kept alive.”

“I like the idea of young readers using my stories as a sort of moral gym, where they can flex and develop their newly developed moral muscle.”

“I prefer watching people on a screen, and I've had the most pleasurable people-watching experiences at the Palace Cinema in Balwyn.”

“I think, to be a successful author, you've got to be part recluse and part show-off.”