I thought that if I were going into old age I would want to do what [Giuseppe] Verdi did, which is to write extraordinary things, and to really find myself.

When Mozart is playing in my room, I am in conjunction with something I can't explain... I don't need to. I know that if there's a purpose for life, it was for me to hear Mozart.

When you hide another story in a story, that’s the story I am telling the children.

Childhood is cannibals and psychotics vomiting in your mouth!

Mothers and children are human beings, and they will sometimes do the wrong thing.

We're animals. We're violent. We're criminal. And if I've done anything, I've had kids express themselves as they are.

Sendak is in search of what he calls a "yummy death". William Blake set the standard, jumping up from his death bed at the last minute to start singing. "A happy death," says Sendak. "It can be done." He lifts his eyebrows to two peaks. "If you're William Blake and totally crazy.