144 Quotes by Michael Morpurgo

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 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.

To write something you have to feel it and know it, and that's not comfortable.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

When I was very little my mother would read to me in bed. She gave me a fascination for stories, and for the music in words.