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Mothers and children are human beings, and they will sometimes do the wrong thing.
Maurice Sendak
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I had a brother who was my savior, made my childhood bearable.
Maurice Sendak
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'Hansel and Gretel' is one of the scariest stories ever written! Psychotic mother; stupid, inane father.
Maurice Sendak
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I cry a lot because I miss people.
Maurice Sendak
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I'm not obsessed with angels but I do adore angels.
Maurice Sendak
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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.
Maurice Sendak
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I'm not afraid of death.
Maurice Sendak
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I grew up in a house that was in a constant state of mourning.
Maurice Sendak
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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.
Maurice Sendak
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I would infinitely prefer a daughter.
Maurice Sendak
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There are certain pieces of music that are always attached to certain books.
Maurice Sendak
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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.
Maurice Sendak
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I can't believe I've turned into a typical old man.
Maurice Sendak
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We're supposed to do all these things which trouble us deeply because it's so against what we naturally would want to do.
Maurice Sendak
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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.
Maurice Sendak
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You cannot write for children They're much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them.
Maurice Sendak
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I certainly don't spell it out. But they have to know it's possible things are bad. But, they are surrounded by people who love them and will protect them but cannot hide the fact that there is something bad.
Maurice Sendak
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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 the splendid grace. And I think that is what’s happening to me.
Maurice Sendak
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I was miserable as a kid.
Maurice Sendak
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When you hide another story in a story, that’s the story I am telling the children.
Maurice Sendak
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I stress character, character, character.
Maurice Sendak
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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?
Maurice Sendak
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We're animals. We're violent. We're criminal.
Maurice Sendak
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It dawned on me that art was the way I could survive.
Maurice Sendak
