Michael Foreman Quotes

I got into writing because books and stories were always a big part of my life. I loved listening to them and then reading them, and I loved making them up.

I've been falsely accused of drawing too much from real life. But I am a petty thief - I take little things. And, I mean, I can hardly write 10 words before I start to make things up. I start to invent, because that's what I want to do. I'm running away to an invented place.

I write from real life. I am an unrepentant eavesdropper and a collector of stories. I record bits of overheard dialogue.

Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by.

The great thing about making picture books is that you can make absolutely anything you want happen. It's a bit like making a film, but you don't need lots of money for actors and costumes - you just need pens, paper, and your imagination.

All of my novels are seeded in real life events, and 'The Wreckage' is no different.

I get ideas for my books from people I know and what happens to them, from places I've been and what happens to me, and from things I read.

I think that one of the things you have to do to become a storyteller is spend a lot of time reading stories.

For me, writing a novel is like having a dream. Writing a novel lets me intentionally dream while I'm still awake. I can continue yesterday's dream today, something you can't normally do in everyday life.

I feel like reading really defined me as a writer because I lived my life outside of my own body for so much of my life and I loved it. I've always been a reader. I think living all those stories served me to naturally take that next step to creating.

I think the reason I'm a writer is because first, I was a reader. I loved to read. I read a lot of adventure stories and mystery books, and I have wonderful memories of my mom reading picture books aloud to me. I learned that words are powerful.

It's easier for me to write certain character types because of my own life experiences, but I find it too artistically limiting to only write about red-headed kids who grew up in small town Montana. That's really part of the fun of fantasy, I think. Our imagination is basically unlimited. Okay, that's a terrifying thing about fantasy, too.

In real life, writers tend to be quite boring, but in our books, we're having exciting adventures all the time.

A lot of things that I write about have happened to people around me, if not necessarily to me or in the organizations I've worked in. Having said that, it's fiction and has a lot to do with my imagination and creativity.

The thing that inspires me most is reading and just observing the people around me. I think those are the two things that make me want to write.

Obviously any fiction is going to be a combination of what is invented, what is overheard, what is experienced, what is experienced by people close to you, what you are told, what you have read, all mixed together into this kind of soup which, like any good soup, at the end you cannot really distinguish the ingredients.

I never set out to write literature; I set out to tell stories. And some of my work may be very raunchy and very bloodthirsty - but life, for me, is a violent thing.

I'll take a certain concern of my own or a situation and try to frame it around a fictional story, but sometimes just straight-up autobiographical songs work well, and sometimes a story is better. I like stories. I like to hear them. I don't think there are enough of them in songs anymore.

Kids often ask me if characters are real or made up - and I always tell them, 'I hope they're real but I made them up.'

You have to have heart's passion to write a novel.

Writing for children is my... that's my medium, you know, and the medium is the picture book, which is a very particular kind of book. I try to give children what I would give anybody, you know. I become interested in something. I find something fascinating. It has to fascinate me, and then I want to give it to them.

I love using my imagination. I love writing about animals.

Everyone has early fiction fantasies, but it wasn't until my second child Betsy was born that I allowed the urge to write a novel bubble up.

Storytelling is what lights my fire.

Part of my job as Children's Laureate is to visit schools and talk about my love of books and stories and encourage them all to do it as well - to read, to write, to never be afraid of their own voice. Because we all have something to say.