If I have an unusual gift, it's not that I draw particularly better than other people - I've never fooled myself about that. Rather it's that I remember things other people don't recall: the sounds and feelings and images - the emotional quality - of particular moments in childhood. Happily an essential part of myself - my dreaming life - still lives in the light of childhood.
Maurice SendakWeโve educated children to think that spontaneity is inappropriate. Children are willing to expose themselves to experiences. We arenโt. Grownups always say they protect their children, but theyโre really protecting themselves. Besides, you canโt protect children. They know everything.
Maurice SendakI want to be free again. I want to be free like when I was a kid, working with my brother and making toy airplanes and a whole model of the World's Fair in 1939 out of wax.
Maurice Sendak