Michael Morpurgo Quotes

Early on my career, I figured out that I just have to write the book I have to write at that moment. Whatever else is going on in the culture is just not that important. If you could get the culture to write your book, that would be great. But the culture can't write your book.

As a writer, you have to first of all write what you want to. Listen to advice, by all means, but don't get bogged down in it.

Don't let anyone tell you there's only one way to write.

People love talking about writers as storytellers, but I hate being called that: it suggests I got it from my grandmother or something, when my writing really comes out of silence. If a storyteller came up to me, I'd run away.

I can only say that I myself wrote always as I wished, without a tremendous desire to find the latest thing possible.

I write what I want to write.

I would like to be able to write in my own voice.

If you write enough, you begin to learn to do things. But in a way, you do start from zero each time.

Writing is not a competitive sport. Everyone that writes has his or her own voice.

I always write the pieces I want to write.

When aspiring writers ask me about how they should target their writing, I tell them to pay no attention to that kind of thing. It will restrict you. You will end up falling into stereotypes in an effort to tailor your work toward a perceived genre category.

Professor Al Drake encouraged me to just write the way I talk. I decided if that's what I needed to do, I didn't need to be in school to do it.

I love to write. I used to be a math teacher. And I like the idea that other people could write about the same subjects, but no one would write it just the way I do. It's very individual: a child could write the same story as somebody else, but it wouldn't come out the same.

I don't think you can write according to a set of rules and laws; every writer is so different.

The secret is to write just anything, to dare to write just anything, because when you write just anything, you begin to say what is important.

I'm a writer, and I will write what I want to write.

Write for yourself. That's it. And write every day.

Write for yourself, not for a perceived audience. If you do, you'll mostly fall flat on your face, because it's impossible to judge what people want. And you have to read. That's how you learn what is good writing and what is bad. Then the main thing is application. It's hard work.

I wrote every day. I don't think I could have written 'Just Kids' had I not spent all of the 80s developing my craft as a writer.

When I'm writing a book, you can't think about your audience. You're going to be in big trouble if you think about it. You're got to write from deep inside.

I don't write anything if I'm not agreeable and liking it. I'm not one of these slavers who wads up paper. It comes or it doesn't.

It took me six novels before I felt confident of my voice as a writer.

You have to write your own story, your own graph and rhythm.

I think you can't help but write in your own voice.

I feel you should be able to write about whatever you want.