Michael Morpurgo Quotes & Sayings (Page 6)

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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 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.”

“Anything that gets children reading is fine.”

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

“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.”