Quotes By Maurice Sendak

There's something in this country that is so opposed to understanding the complexity of children.

All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew.

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

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.

'Hansel and Gretel' is one of the scariest stories ever written! Psychotic mother; stupid, inane father.

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.

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?

My work is not great, but it's respectable. I have no false illusions.

In plain terms, a child is a complicated creature who can drive you crazy. There's a cruelty to childhood, there's an anger.

You can't write masterpieces in your 80s and be happy too.

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.

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.

There must be more to life than having everything.

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.

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.

I'm sick of 'Wild Things.'

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.

I became a set designer for opera. I'm a great opera buff, I love classical music, and I needed a time-out.

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.

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.

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.

Parents shouldn't assume children are made out of sugar candy and will break and collapse instantly. Kids don't. We do.

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.

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.

I can't believe I've turned into a typical old man. I can't believe it. I was young just minutes ago.

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.

I grew up in a house that was in a constant state of mourning.

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

You cannot write for children They're much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them.

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.