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As a kid, all I thought about was death. But you can't tell your parents that.
Maurice Sendak -
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.
Maurice Sendak
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I am not a religious person, nor do I have any regrets.
Maurice Sendak -
A book is a book is a book.
Maurice Sendak -
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.
Maurice Sendak -
I have a good life.
Maurice Sendak -
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.
Maurice Sendak -
I didn't have much confidence in myself... never.
Maurice Sendak
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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.
Maurice Sendak -
I feel like I don't have a lot of time left.
Maurice Sendak -
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.
Maurice Sendak -
I became a set designer for opera.
Maurice Sendak -
My being gay was something of not great interest to me.
Maurice Sendak -
I'm sick of 'Wild Things.'
Maurice Sendak
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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.
Maurice Sendak -
I do not remember any proper children's books in my childhood. I was not exposed to them.
Maurice Sendak -
You don't want to do something that's all terrifying.
Maurice Sendak -
There's something in this country that is so opposed to understanding the complexity of children.
Maurice Sendak -
I can't believe I've turned into a typical old man. I can't believe it. I was young just minutes ago.
Maurice Sendak -
Childhood is a tricky business. Usually, something goes wrong.
Maurice Sendak
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Finding out that I was gay when I was older was a shock and a disappointment.
Maurice Sendak -
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.
Maurice Sendak -
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?
Maurice Sendak -
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.
Maurice Sendak