Maurice Sendak Quotes
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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.
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Hitler made a film about 'Hitler gives a camp to the Jews'. And they look all shiny. And they're drawing. And they're playing volleyball. And people are dancing. And people are having a wonderful time. And everybody fell for it.
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As a kid, all I thought about was death.
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I'm not a religious person.
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Grown-ups are afraid for children. It's not children who are afraid.
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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.
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It's no fun being lonely.
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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.
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I don't have kids at all and I thank God that I never did.
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Finding out that I was gay when I was older was a shock and a disappointment.
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Childhood is a tricky business. Usually, something goes wrong.
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There's something in this country that is so opposed to understanding the complexity of children.
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I don't write for children. I write and someone says it's for children.
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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?
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My parents were ignorant peasants from the Old World.
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I'm still as enamored and turned on by work as I was when I was young.
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I hate people.
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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.
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I don't need faith.
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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.
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You can't write masterpieces in your 80s and be happy too.
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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.
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My work is not great, but it's respectable.
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I have this idiot name tag which says 'controversial.'