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I Tell You, My Friends,’ He Said One Day. ‘i Tell You That I Am The Only Sane Man In The Regiment. It’s The Others That Are Mad, But They Don’t Know It. They Fight A War And They Don’t Know What For. Isn’t That Crazy? How Can One Man Kill Another And Not Really Know The Reason Why He Does It, Except That The Other Man Wears A Different Colour Uniform And Speaks A Different Language? And It’s Me They Call Mad!

-Michael Morpurgo

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I Tell You, My

Michael Morpurgo

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I Tell You, My Friends,’ He Said One Day. ‘i Tell You That I Am The Only Sane Man In The Regiment. It’s The Others That Are Mad, But They Don’t Know It. They Fight A War And They Don’t Know What For. Isn’t That Crazy? How Can One Man Kill Another And Not Really Know The Reason Why He Does It, Except That The Other Man Wears A Different Colour Uniform And Speaks A Different Language? And It’s Me They Call Mad!

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Like Most Writers, I Sit In A Room And Scribble A Story And You Don't Have A Connection With The People Who Take Your Story, Whether It Be To The Stage Or To The Screen.

It's The Teacher That Makes The Difference, Not The Classroom.

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.

Any Story That Gets Us Thinking, And Particularly Young People, Thinking Why? Whether It's As A Result Of Reading The Book, Or Coming Out Of The Theatre Or The Cinema, I Think We Should Just Simply Be Asking The Question 'why'? Why Did It Happen To Those People? Was It Necessary? And Anything That Gets Us Thinking Like That Is Really Important.

Any Story You Write About War, Or Film You Make About War, Is Bound To Be Political Whether You Like It Or Not.

My Albert Married His Maisie Brown As He Said He Would. But I Think She Never Took To Me, Nor I To Her For That Matter. Perhaps It Was A Feeling Of Mutual Jealousy.

I Think There's Something About Studying A Book Which Will Kill It If You're Not Careful.

I Can Hate You More, But I'll Never Love You Less.

What's Really Good Is That There Are People Making Stories And Writing Them And The Vast Majority Never See The Light Of Day And It Doesn't Matter A Fig.

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.

Genuinely Good People Are Like That. The Sun Shines Out Of Them. They Warm You Right Through.

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.

I Fill Up The Well Of Stories In My Head - Without Ever Knowing I'm Doing It.

I Don't Want To Be Separate From Something That's Important To Me.

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.

Books That Kids Read Should Be About What Is Going On In The World.

That's What This War Is All About, My Friend. It's About Which Of Us Is The Crazier.and Clearly You British Have An Advantage.you Were Crazy Beforehand.

Stories Make You Think And Dream; Books Make You Want To Ask Questions.

One Of The Great Failings Of Our Education System Is That We Tend To Focus On Those Who Are Succeeding In Exams, And There Are Plenty Of Them. But What We Should Also Be Looking At, And A Lot More Urgently, Is Those Who Fail.

Perhaps It Is Partly That We Need To Love Books Ourselves As Parents, Grandparents And Teachers In Order To Pass On That Passion For Stories To Our Children. It's Not About Testing And Reading Schemes, But About Loving Stories And Passing On That Passion To Our Children.

Animals Are Sentient, Intelligent, Perceptive, Funny And Entertaining. We Owe Them A Duty Of Care As We Do To Children.

There's Room For All Sorts Of Magic And Miracles In This World - That's What I Think.

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Any Problem Can Be Solved Between People If Only They Can Trust Each Other

As A Young Child My Attention Span Was, As I Remember It, Rather Short.

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.

That's What Sailing Is, A Dance, And Your Partner Is The Sea. And With The Sea You Never Take Liberties. You Ask Her, You Don't Tell Her. You Have To Remember Always That She's The Leader, Not You. You And Your Boat Are Dancing To Her Tune.

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.

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.

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.

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I Tell You, My Friends,’ He Said One Day. ‘i Tell You That I Am The Only Sane Man In The Regiment. It’s The Others That Are Mad, But They Don’t Know It. They Fight A War And They Don’t Know What For. Isn’t That Crazy? How Can One Man Kill Another And Not Really Know The Reason Why He Does It, Except That The Other Man Wears A Different Colour Uniform And Speaks A Different Language? And It’s Me They Call Mad!

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I Spend Months, Sometimes Years, Doing What I Call Dreamtime, Weaving It Together Inside My Head. But When I Actually Feel That The Egg Of My Story Is Ready To Hatch, Then I Can Write It In Three Months. Then I Know The Landscape And The People Well And From The Inside, But I Don't Necessarily Know Where The Story Is Going To Take Us.

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