The fact that Maurice Sendak said, "This is something that I made at your age, this was something that was personal to me, and now you need to take it and make something that's personal to you." I don't know, but we made the Where The Wild Things Are movie that we set out to make, and Maurice loves it. If Maurice was anxious about it, then I would be petrified.

Finding a kid that could be introspective and internal and thoughtful, and then also be wild and free and guileless and physical, it was hard. So at the end we started getting down to panic time, and we still hadn't found our Max. And we decided to go about it a different way. We said, "Let's just find friends of ours that live in interesting cities in the country that maybe aren't as big, and people that don't do casting." And thinking maybe you find a place that has an artistic community, maybe we'll find some interesting kids from there.

If I leave my phone in the car and go to dinner or something for a few hours, I'm very proud of myself.

I think the way kids create is so inspiring. They're drawing a picture? They love the picture they drew; they're not tortured about it.

I think because I'm not a parent, my most immediate connection to childhood is my memory of my own childhood.

As a parent, your perspective of childhood is through the eyes of this person that you care so much about and you just want the world to be great for them. You want their life to be easy and happy.

I like naps. I don't drink coffee.