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But just as soon as this war's over and finished with,I'll get back home and marry her.I've grown up with her, Joey, known her all my life. S'pose I know her almost as well as I know myself, and I like her a lot better.
Michael Morpurgo -
I don't consciously try to take my readers on a journey as I don't really think about my readers when I'm writing. I just try to write what I feel passionately about, to tell a story down onto the page.
Michael Morpurgo
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I was never a great reader, but there were two stories I loved best: Kipling's The Elephant's Child and The Jungle Book. Deep down, I've always wanted to write a book about a wild child and an elephant.
Michael Morpurgo -
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.
Michael Morpurgo -
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.
Michael Morpurgo -
A lot of children, like I did, move away from words because of the fear - which is something you have to take out of education: the fear of worrying about what marks you'll get, detention, worrying about letting people down, your parents, teachers.
Michael Morpurgo -
There's a mouse in here with me. He's sitting there in the light of the lamp, looking up at me. He seems as surprised to see me as I am to see him. There he goes. I can hear him still, scurrying about somewhere under the hayrick. I think he's gone now. I hope he comes back. I miss him already.
Michael Morpurgo -
I got married young, far too young, but it is fine. We are still married 48 years later. I got married at 19.
Michael Morpurgo
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I don't want to be separate from something that's important to me.
Michael Morpurgo -
Often it's the latest novel that I've written that is my favourite. I'd been dreaming it for so long, living and breathing its story so that when it finally arrives as a newly published book, smelling wonderful and fresh out of the box, there is nothing like it.
Michael Morpurgo -
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.
Michael Morpurgo -
Elephants are my favourite creatures and have been since I was a boy and my mother read Kipling's The Elephant's Child to me. It was loving elephants so much that made we want to write my own story with an elephant at the centre and its bond with a child.
Michael Morpurgo -
I could believe only in the hell I was living in, a hell on earth, and it was man-made, not God-made.
Michael Morpurgo -
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.
Michael Morpurgo
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I think people are more in contact now with the consequences of war than they've been for a very long time. And that's what amazes me when sometimes politicians seem to forget their history. They don't look and re-learn about what has happened before. Maybe they haven't got the memory, maybe they're already too young, but you can see how we become puffed up, and how we as a nation rise so quickly if we're not careful.
Michael Morpurgo -
Any problem can be solved between people if only they can trust each other
Michael Morpurgo -
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.
Michael Morpurgo -
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.
Michael Morpurgo -
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.
Michael Morpurgo -
Theatre can transform a child's life, just as an early cultural experience whether with opera, ballet, music or art is a wonderful thing because it opens the door to a life-long experience, a life-long enjoyment.
Michael Morpurgo
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I don't know, but I do think that everyone has a story to tell. The question is, can they find the voice and the confidence to tell it? We lack the encouragement as young people to believe this; we very often think that writing is for clever people, which it isn't.
Michael Morpurgo -
It is the child's understanding that teaches the adults the way of the future. They're still doing it today with modern technology.
Michael Morpurgo -
Animals are sentient, intelligent, perceptive, funny and entertaining. We owe them a duty of care as we do to children.
Michael Morpurgo -
Stories make you think and dream; books make you want to ask questions.
Michael Morpurgo