A biography for Michael Morpurgohasn’t been written yet.
“It gives me confidence to know that what I'm writing has a veracity of its own without me having to invent it. When I'm writing fiction, I must believe it to be true, or I can see no point in it.”
“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.”
“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. I know the sun will rise in the morning, that there is a light at the end of every tunnel.”
“I become my characters, and then try to allow events in the story to take their own course. I try not to play God, but to let them work out their own destiny.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Books that kids read should be about what is going on in the world.”
“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.”
“The big relationships you make in your life are with those that you love and if things do go wrong then it's a source of great pain and that lasts.”
“The most important thing is to live an interesting life. Keep your eyes, ears and heart open. Talk to people and visit interesting places, and don't forget to ask questions. To be a writer you need to drink in the world around you so it's always there in your head.”
“I was brought up, as a lot of kids are, on 'Aesop's Fables,' 'Brothers Grimm,' 'La Fontaine,' all those sorts of things. Hans Christian Andersen is a hero of mine.”
“I fill up the well of stories in my head - without ever knowing I'm doing it.”
“I'm still not sure I want to be a writer. I think of myself as a storyteller more.”
“Something I learn every time I stand in front of a bunch of children, I learn never, never to underestimate them or patronise them.”
“There's room for all sorts of magic and miracles in this world - that's what I think.”
“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.”
“I think there's something about studying a book which will kill it if you're not careful.”
“Secrets are lies by another name.”
“Access to books and the encouragement of the habit of reading: these two things are the first and most necessary steps in education and librarians, teachers and parents all over the country know it. It is our children's right and it is also our best hope and their best hope for the future.”
“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.”