Maurice Sendak Quotes
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I do not remember any proper children's books in my childhood. I was not exposed to them.
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I became a set designer for opera.
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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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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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It's no fun being lonely.
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Grown-ups are afraid for children. It's not children who are afraid.
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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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I'm still as enamored and turned on by work as I was when I was young.
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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 write for children. I write and someone says it's for children.
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I don't have kids at all and I thank God that I never did.
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My parents were ignorant peasants from the Old World.
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There's something in this country that is so opposed to understanding the complexity of 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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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 hate people.
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My work is not great, but it's respectable.
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All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew.
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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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I have this idiot name tag which says 'controversial.'
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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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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.