31 Quotes By Maurice Sendak


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 on alone

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 on anger

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 on art

Childhood is a tricky business. Usually, something goes wrong.
Maurice Sendak on business

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 on dad

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 on dad

As a kid, all I thought about was death. But you can't tell your parents that.
Maurice Sendak on death

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 on death

I'm not afraid of death.
Maurice Sendak on death

The distinctions of fine art bore me to death.
Maurice Sendak on death

As a kid, all I thought about was death.
Maurice Sendak on death

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 on experience

I don't need faith.
Maurice Sendak on faith

I hate those e-books. They can not be the future... they may well be... I will be dead.
Maurice Sendak on future

I hate those e-books. They cannot be the future. They may well be.
Maurice Sendak on future

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 on happiness

I adored Mickey Mouse when I was a child. He was the emblem of happiness and funniness.
Maurice Sendak on happiness

My life in Brooklyn was in constant danger because of my bad health.
Maurice Sendak on health

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 on hope

I've convinced myself - I hope I'm right - that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth.
Maurice Sendak on hope