Maurice Sendak

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

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

I refuse to lie to children.

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.

My work is not great, but it's respectable.

I would infinitely prefer a daughter.

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 feel extremely vulnerable.

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.

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

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.

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

I'm not afraid of death.

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

I hate those e-books. They can not be the future... they may well be... I will be dead.

There must be more to life than having everything.

It's no fun being lonely.

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

It dawned on me that art was the way I could survive.

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 hate people.

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

I hate those e-books. They cannot be the future. They may well be.

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

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

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

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.

You don't want to do something that's all terrifying.

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

I'm a lucky buck.

There are certain pieces of music that are always attached to certain books.

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

I grew up in a house that was in a constant state of mourning.

We're animals. We're violent. We're criminal.

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

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'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?

We're supposed to do all these things which trouble us deeply because it's so against what we naturally would want to do.

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

I have a good life.

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.

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 only have one subject. The question I am obsessed with is: How do children survive?

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

If life is so critical, if Anne Frank could die, if my friend could die, children were as vulnerable as adults, and that gave me a secret purpose to my work, to make them live. Because I wanted to live. I wanted to grow up.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Kids are so shrewd.

I became a set designer for opera.

Kids lead a very private life.

Finding out that I was gay when I was older was a shock and a disappointment.

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.

I feel like I don't have a lot of time left.

I am not a religious person, nor do I have any regrets.

I'm still as enamored and turned on by work as I was when I was young.

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.

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

The distinctions of fine art bore me to death.

I'm totally crazy, I know that.

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

I wanted to be acknowledged as an artist, not just some kiddie-book artist.

I don't have kids at all and I thank God that I never did.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm not obsessed with angels but I do adore angels.

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.

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 want to write something so simple, so short and so silly... and I want it to be for my brother.

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

I was miserable as a kid.

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.

You cannot write for children They're much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them.

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

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.

A book is a book is a book.

I have this idiot name tag which says 'controversial.'

I write books that seem more suitable for children, and that's OK with me. They are a better audience and tougher critics. Kids tell you what they think, not what they think they should think.

I don't believe in an afterlife but I still fully expect to see my brother again.

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

I don't write for children. I write and someone says it's for children.

My father belonged to a Jewish social club.

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 don't need faith.

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

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?

My parents were ignorant peasants from the Old World.

I'm sick of 'Wild Things.'

I'm not a religious person.

As a kid, all I thought about was death.