Maurice Sendak quotes:

Oh, I adored Mickey Mouse when I was a child. He was the emblem of happiness and funniness. You went to the movies then, you saw two movies and a short. When Mickey Mouse came on the screen and there was his big head, my sister said she had to hold onto me. I went berserk.

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?

You know who my gods are, who I believe in fervently? Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson - she's probably the top - Mozart, Shakespeare, Keats. These are wonderful gods who have gotten me through the narrow straits of life.

I have to accept my role. I will never kill myself like Vincent Van Gogh. Nor will I paint beautiful water lilies like Monet. I can't do that. I'm in the idiot role of being a kiddie book person.

I adored Mickey Mouse when I was a child. He was the emblem of happiness and funniness.

I think people should be given a test much like driver's tests as to whether they're capable of being parents!

My father could be very witty, even if the humor was always on the darker side of irony.

To get a child's trust - you may know or not - is a very hard thing to do. They're so used to not believing adults - because adults tell tales and lies all the time.

My life in Brooklyn was in constant danger because of my bad health.

I've convinced myself - I hope I'm right - that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth.

Yes, there have to be places for safe wonderful stories.

I'm writing a poem right now about a nose. I've always wanted to write a poem about a nose. But it's a ludicrous subject. That's why, when I was younger, I was afraid of something that didn't make a lot of sense. But now I'm not. I have nothing to worry about. It doesn't matter.

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

Certainly we want to protect our children from new and painful experiences that are beyond their emotional comprehension and that intensify anxiety; and to a point we can prevent premature exposure to such experiences.

I do not remember any proper children's books in my childhood. I was not exposed to them.

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.

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.

Parents shouldn't assume children are made out of sugar candy and will break and collapse instantly.

Girls are infinitely more complicated than boys and women more than men. And there's no doubt about that. We just don't like to think about it. Certainly the men don't like to think about it.

When I did 'Bumble-ardy,' I was so intensely aware of death. Eugene, my friend and partner, was dying here in the house when I did 'Bumble-ardy'. I did 'Bumble-ardy' to save myself. I did not want to die with him. I wanted to live, as any human being does.

I had a brother who was my savior, made my childhood bearable.

Things come to you without you necessarily knowing what they mean.

People from New York have been calling, to see if I'm still alive. When I answer the phone, you can hear the disappointment in their voice.

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.

I want to be alone and work until the day my heads hits the drawing table and I'm dead. Kaput. I feel very much like I want to be with my brother and sister again. They're nowhere. I know they're nowhere and they don't exist, but if nowhere means that's where they are, that's where I want to be.

As a kid, all I thought about was death. But you can't tell your parents that.

I don't need faith.

I hate people.

I think people should be given a test much like driver's tests as to whether they're capable of being parents! It's an art form. I talk a lot. And I think a lot. And I draw a lot. But never in a million years would I have been a parent. That's just work that's too hard.

My being gay was something of not great interest to me.

It's no fun being lonely.

I mean, being a child was being a child, was being a creature without power, without pocket money, without escape routes of any kind. So I didn't want to be a child.

I've always loved pigs: the shape of them, the look of them, and the fact that they are so intelligent.

My parents were ignorant peasants from the Old World.

There's so much more to a book than just the reading.

Kids don't know about best sellers. They go for what they enjoy. They aren't star chasers and they don't suck up. It's why I like them.

Grown-ups are afraid for children. It's not children who are afraid.

Do parents sit down and tell their kids everything? I don't know. I don't know. I've convinced myself - I hope I'm right - that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth.

I refuse to lie to children.

I think it is unnatural to think that there is such a thing as a blue-sky, white-clouded happy childhood for anybody. Childhood is a very, very tricky business of surviving it. Because if one thing goes wrong or anything goes wrong, and usually something goes wrong, then you are compromised as a human being. You're going to trip over that for a good part of your life.

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

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.

One of the beauties of being an artist is that you can create a whole new world, with circumstances that are better in your invented world than they are in the real world.

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

And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming wild things.

. . .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.

Sipping once, sipping twice, sipping chicken soup with rice.

Each month is gay, Each season nice, When eating Chicken soup With rice

We're supposed to be civilized. We're supposed to go to work every day. We're supposed to be nice to our friends and send Christmas cards to our parents.

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

I have been doodling with ink and watercolor on paper all my life. It's my way of stirring up my imagination to see what I find hidden in my head. I call the results dream pictures, fantasy sketches, and even brain-sharpenin g exercises.

Children are tough, though we tend to think of them as fragile. They have to be tough. Childhood is not easy. We sentimentalize children, but they know what's real and what's not. They understand metaphor and symbol. If children are different from us, they are more spontaneous. Grown-up lives have become overlaid with dross.

If children are different from us, they are more spontaneous. Grown-up lives have become overlaid with dross.

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

Children do live in fantasy and reality; they move back and forth very easily in a way we no longer remember how to do.

I believe there is no part of our lives, our adult as well as child life, when we're not fantasizing, but we prefer to relegate fantasy to children, as though it were some tomfoolery only fit for the immature minds of the young. Children do live in fantasy and reality; they move back and forth very easily in a way we no longer remember how to do.

There must be more to life than having everything.

Then from far away across the world he smelled good things to eat, so he gave up being king of the wild things.

One of the few graces of getting old-and God knows there are few graces-is that if you've worked hard and kept your nose to the grindstone, something happens: The body gets old but the creative mechanism is refreshed, smoothed and oiled and honed. That is the grace. That is what's happening to me.

Hansel and Gretel' is one of the scariest stories ever written! Psychotic mother; stupid, inane father.

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.

What is the point of it all? Not leaving legacies. But being ripe. Being ripe.

I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more.

And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!

And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.

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.

Children surviving childhood is my obsessive theme and my life's concern,

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?

Peter Rabbit, for all its gentle tininess, loudly proclaims that no story is worth the writing, no picture worth the making, if it is not a work of imagination.

I remember my own childhood vividly...I knew terrible things. But I knew I mustn't let adults know I knew. It would scare them

The day after Paul Newman was dead, he was twice as dead.

Childhood is a tricky business. Usually, something goes wrong.

My therapies went on forever.

Kids are so shrewd.

I became a set designer for opera.

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

I never set out to write books for children. I don't have a feeling that I'm gonna save children or my life is devoted.

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

I'm not Hans Christian Anderson. Nobody's gonna make a statue in the park with a lot of scrambling kids climbing up me. I won't have it, okay?

I'm an illustrator. I have to accept my role.

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.

You can't write masterpieces in your 80s and be happy too.

Newt Gingrich is an idiot of great renown... There's something so hopelessly gross and vile about him it's hard to take him seriously.

I remember how much - when I was a small boy I was taken to see a version of 'Peter Pan.' I detested it. I mean, the sentimental idea that anybody would want to remain a boy.

The distinctions of fine art bore me to death.

My work is not great, but it's respectable. I have no false illusions.

My father belonged to a Jewish social club.

I'm not afraid of death.

Do parents sit down and tell their kids everything? I don't know. I don't know.

I can't believe I've turned into a typical old man.

Parents shouldn't assume children are made out of sugar candy and will break and collapse instantly. Kids don't. We do.

I'm scared of watching a TV show about vampires. I can't fall asleep.

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.

I'm sick of 'Wild Things.'

All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy.

All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew.

I didn't have much confidence in myself... never.

[Drawing] and making things was all we ever did. My brother and I built the entire New York World's Fair of 1939 in miniature out of wax. The floor of our room was covered with little waxen buildings. Nobody else could come in.

A book is really like a lover. It arranges itself in your life in a way that is beautiful.

A book is really like a lover. It arranges itself in your life in a way that is beautiful. Even as a kid, my sister, who was the eldest, brought books home for me, and I think I spent more time sniffing and touching them than reading. I just remember the joy of the book, the beauty of the binding. The smelling of the interior. Happy.

A whole new world of Italian music was springing up, and [Giuseppe] Verdi was seen as old. Boito got Verdi all excited about the possibility of doing another opera, another kind of opera. In fact, Verdi composed his two best operas, Otello and Falstaff, in his eighties.

All I liked to do when I was a kid was draw.

All I liked to do when I was a kid was draw. My childhood was like my adult life: drawing pictures with my brother, putting the comics up on the glass window, and tracing the characters onto tracing paper or drawing paper and then coloring them. That and making things was all we ever did.

An illustrator in my own mind - and this is not a truth of any kind - is someone who so falls in love with writing that he wishes he had written it, and the closest he can get to is illustrating it. And the next thing you learn, you have to find something unique in this book, which perhaps even the author was not entirely aware of. And that's what you hold on to, and that's what you add to the pictures: a whole Other Story that you believe in, that you think is there.

And [he] sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for him and it was still hot

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

Art has always been my salvation.

As a child, I felt that books were holy objects, to be caressed, rapturously sniffed, and devotedly provided for. I gave my life to them. I still do. I continue to do what I did as a child; dream of books, make books and collect books.

As an aspiring artist, you should strive for originality of vision. Have something to say and a fresh way of saying it. No story is worth the writing, no picture worth the making, if it's not the work of the imagination.

Because love is so enormous, the only thing you can think of doing is swallowing the person that you love entirely.

Bumble-Ardy is a very wicked little child as far as I'm concerned. He's not to be trusted.

Bumble-Ardy looks like a happy book. That's the funniest thing about it. But this was survival. I was working very hard to survive.

Childhood is cannibals and psychotics vomiting in your mouth!

Children are the best living audience in the world because they are so thoroughly honest.

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

Emeralds,' said the rabbit. 'Emeralds make a lovely gift.

For my father the one calamity was that my brother and sister and I never learned to swim. My father, who was very macho, was a strong swimmer and was terribly disappointed to have children who didn't swim. Once when my mother was sitting in a beach chair - I can still see the big umbrella - she called to my father, "Throw them in! Throw them in! They'll swim!" So he did. Then he looked down, and there were the three Sendak children lying perfectly still underwater, not fighting for life!

God, I had great people in my life.

Grown-ups desperately need to feel safe, and then they project onto the kids. But what none of us seem to realize is how smart kids are. They don't like what we write for them, what we dish up for them, because it's vapid, so they'll go for the hard words, they'll go for the hard concepts, they'll go for the stuff where they can learn something. Not didactic things, but passionate things.