Maurice Sendak Quotes

Kids lead a very private life.

My big concern is me and what do I do now until the time of my death. That is valid. That is useful. That is beautiful. That is creative.

The magic of childhood is the strangeness of childhood — the uniqueness that makes us see things that other people don't see.

I would infinitely prefer a daughter.

And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.

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

Dreams raise the emotional level of what I'm doing at the moment.

I had been reading a fabulous book [The Man Verdi, by Frank Walker] about [Giuseppe] Verdi, whom I adore.

My brother, who was older, was the gifted one, much more talented than I.

Thank God that Bumble-Ardy's parents are dead so we don't have to wonder what they did to him. We only know that they were famous, and famous people have unhappy children for the most part. They don't have the time to take care of them. So he's a troubled pig-boy, a kid you've got to watch.

I'd like to believe an accumulation of experience has made me a sort of a grown-up person, so I can have judgment and taste and whatever.

We've educated children to think spontaneity is inappropriate.

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.

I'm not jaded. I never have been jaded. I've always been surprised at my success. I've always enjoyed it.

I often went to bed without supper cause I hated my mother's cooking. So, to go to bed without supper was not a torture to me. If she was gonna hurt me, she'd make me eat.

We're animals. We're violent. We're criminal. We're not so far away from the gorillas and the apes, those beautiful creatures.

Kids books Grownup books That's just marketing. Books are books.

My sister had her own room. She also had innumerable boyfriends. I had a yo-yo collection that was beyond belief, and the reason I had it was mostly that I would stand in the doorway of the living room watching her and her boyfriend. Finally she caught on how to get this kid out of the way. Give him a yo-yo!

That always seemed to be the most critical test that a child was confronted with - loss of parents, loss of direction, loss of love. Can you live without a mother and a father?

And it's one of the sexiest things you will ever read of how slow you should take the peach. Don't rush it.

If you're making it up, make it up good. And then believe in what you made up.

Truthfullness to life-both fantasy life and factual life-is the basis of all great art.

I became a set designer for opera. I'm a great opera buff, I love classical music, and I needed a time-out.

Art has always been my salvation.

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.

The fan mail I get from kids are asking me questions which they do not ask their mothers and fathers. Because if they had, why write to me, a perfect stranger?

There's something in this country that is so opposed to understanding the complexity of children.

I had lost my sister recently, too, which meant that my whole family was gone. I was the baby of the family. There were five Sendaks and there were five Wild Things, and now there's only one Sendak, and he's about to bite the dust, too! Life, as I said before, was very difficult at that time and so it was natural that there would be a change in the look of things. Also, I was very impressed with my own strength in doing this under the circumstances in which I was living.

I'm totally crazy, I know that. I don't say that to be a smartass, but I know that that's the very essence of what makes my work good. And I know my work is good. Not everybody likes it, that's fine. I don't do it for everybody. Or anybody. I do it because I can't not do it.

Venturing back further, learning is so slow. Accomplishment is so slow. Experiencing and evaluating your experience is so slow.

Most children - I know I did when I was a kid - fantasize another set of parents. Or fantasize no parents. They don't tell their real parents about that - you don't want to tell Mom and Dad. Kids lead a very private life. And I was a typical child, I think. I was a liar.

Make it dangerous or it's not worth doing.

I have a little tiny Emily Dickinson so big that I carry in my pocket everywhere. And you just read three poems of Emily. She is so brave. She is so strong. She is such a sexy, passionate, little woman. I feel better.

I did not know how to paint a mural. I did not know how to prepare the surface. There was nobody from the Renaissance around who could advise me, and I did the best I could.

In another project I worked on just a few years ago, a staging of Peter and the Wolf, which I translated into Yiddish and sang on a stage in New York City. Thank God very few people knew I was doing it! But the kids in the audience loved it - even though it was all in Yiddish.

I can't believe I've turned into a typical old man. I can't believe it. I was young just minutes ago.

I really don't like the city anymore. You get pushed and harassed and people grope you. It's too tumultuous. It's too crazy.

There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.

Kids never get pissed at their parents. Unheard of.

I want to see me to the end working, living for myself. Ripeness is all.

From their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.