Maurice Sendak Quotes
Quotations and aphorisms by Maurice Sendak:
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.
~Maurice Sendak
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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.
~Maurice Sendak
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I feel like I don't have a lot of time left.
~Maurice Sendak
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I don't believe in an afterlife but I still fully expect to see my brother again.
~Maurice Sendak
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Finding out that I was gay when I was older was a shock and a disappointment.
~Maurice Sendak
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I'm not afraid of death.
~Maurice Sendak
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My parents were very indiscrete.
~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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Mothers and children are human beings, and they will sometimes do the wrong thing.
~Maurice Sendak
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I hate people.
~Maurice Sendak
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I don't have kids at all and I thank God that I never did.
~Maurice Sendak
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I've always loved pigs: the shape of them, the look of them, and the fact that they are so intelligent.
~Maurice Sendak
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I have this idiot name tag which says 'controversial.'
~Maurice Sendak
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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.
~Maurice Sendak
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I had a brother who was my savior, made my childhood bearable.
~Maurice Sendak
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I stress character, character, character.
~Maurice Sendak
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A book is a book is a book.
~Maurice Sendak
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I refuse to lie to children.
~Maurice Sendak
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I was miserable as a kid.
~Maurice Sendak
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It dawned on me that art was the way I could survive.
~Maurice Sendak
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Parents shouldn't assume children are made out of sugar candy and will break and collapse instantly.
~Maurice Sendak
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My work is not great, but it's respectable. I have no false illusions.
~Maurice Sendak
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I adored Mickey Mouse when I was a child. He was the emblem of happiness and funniness.
~Maurice Sendak
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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.
~Maurice Sendak
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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
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I have a good life.
~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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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.
~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 became a set designer for opera.
~Maurice Sendak
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The distinctions of fine art bore me to death.
~Maurice Sendak
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I want to write something so simple, so short and so silly... and I want it to be for my brother.
~Maurice Sendak
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I cry a lot because I miss people.
~Maurice Sendak
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Grown-ups are afraid for children. It's not children who are afraid.
~Maurice Sendak
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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.
~Maurice Sendak
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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.
~Maurice Sendak
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I think people should be given a test much like driver's tests as to whether they're capable of being parents!
~Maurice Sendak
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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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My being gay was something of not great interest to me.
~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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The world is twice as crazy as it's ever been.
~Maurice Sendak
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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.
~Maurice Sendak
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My parents were ignorant peasants from the Old World.
~Maurice Sendak
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I wanted to be acknowledged as an artist, not just some kiddie-book artist.
~Maurice Sendak
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I'm scared of watching a TV show about vampires. I can't fall asleep.
~Maurice Sendak
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What I do as best I can is out of a deep respect for children, for how difficult their world is.
~Maurice Sendak
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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
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My therapies went on forever.
~Maurice Sendak
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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
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I've convinced myself - I hope I'm right - that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth.
~Maurice Sendak
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I became a set designer for opera. I'm a great opera buff, I love classical music, and I needed a time-out.
~Maurice Sendak
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Things come to you without you necessarily knowing what they mean.
~Maurice Sendak
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My father belonged to a Jewish social club.
~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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Do parents sit down and tell their kids everything? I don't know. I don't know.
~Maurice Sendak
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Kids are so shrewd.
~Maurice Sendak
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Kids lead a very private life.
~Maurice Sendak
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I'm sick of 'Wild Things.'
~Maurice Sendak
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It's no fun being lonely.
~Maurice Sendak
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I'm a lucky buck.
~Maurice Sendak
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All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy.
~Maurice Sendak
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I don't need faith.
~Maurice Sendak
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In plain terms, a child is a complicated creature who can drive you crazy. There's a cruelty to childhood, there's an anger.
~Maurice Sendak
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My life in Brooklyn was in constant danger because of my bad health.
~Maurice Sendak
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You don't want to do something that's all terrifying.
~Maurice Sendak
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I do not remember any proper children's books in my childhood. I was not exposed to them.
~Maurice Sendak
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I don't write for children. I write and someone says it's for children.
~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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There's something in this country that is so opposed to understanding the complexity of children.
~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
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I can't believe I've turned into a typical old man.
~Maurice Sendak
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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.
~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 hate those e-books. They cannot be the future. They may well be.
~Maurice Sendak
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My work is not great, but it's respectable.
~Maurice Sendak
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I'm not obsessed with angels but I do adore angels.
~Maurice Sendak
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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
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I'm an illustrator. I have to accept my role.
~Maurice Sendak
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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?
~Maurice Sendak
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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.
~Maurice Sendak
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As a kid, all I thought about was death. But you can't tell your parents that.
~Maurice Sendak
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Yes, there have to be places for safe wonderful stories.
~Maurice Sendak
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I am not a religious person, nor do I have any regrets.
~Maurice Sendak
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I'm totally crazy, I know that.
~Maurice Sendak
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My father could be very witty, even if the humor was always on the darker side of irony.
~Maurice Sendak
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You can't write masterpieces in your 80s and be happy too.
~Maurice Sendak
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We're animals. We're violent. We're criminal.
~Maurice Sendak
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There's so much more to a book than just the reading.
~Maurice Sendak
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Childhood is a tricky business. Usually, something goes wrong.
~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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Parents shouldn't assume children are made out of sugar candy and will break and collapse instantly. Kids don't. We do.
~Maurice Sendak
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I hate those e-books. They can not be the future... they may well be... I will be dead.
~Maurice Sendak
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I'm not a religious person.
~Maurice Sendak
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There must be more to life than having everything.
~Maurice Sendak
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As a kid, all I thought about was death.
~Maurice Sendak
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I'm still as enamored and turned on by work as I was when I was young.
~Maurice Sendak
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I feel extremely vulnerable.
~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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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.
~Maurice Sendak
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I only have one subject. The question I am obsessed with is: How do children survive?
~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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I would infinitely prefer a daughter.
~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
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All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew.
~Maurice Sendak
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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.
~Maurice Sendak
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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
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I didn't have much confidence in myself... never.
~Maurice Sendak
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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
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