Maurice Sendak Quotes & Sayings

We are flooded with books; books come pouring out of the publishing meat grinder. And, the quality has dropped severely. We may be able to print a book better, but intrinsically the book, perhaps, is not better than it was. We have a backlist of books, superb books, by Margaret Wise Brown, by Ruth Krauss, by lots of people. I'd much rather we just took a year off, a moratorium: no more books. For a year, maybe two - just stop publishing. And get those old books back, let the children see them! Books don't go out of fashion with children; they only go out of fashion with adults. So that kids are deprived of the works of art which are no longer around simply because new ones keep coming out.

from The Openhearted Audience (1980) — Maurice Sendak

I had a brother who was my savior, made my childhood bearable. — Maurice Sendak

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

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 what's happening to me. — Maurice Sendak

I wanted to be acknowledged as an artist, not just some kiddie-book artist. — Maurice Sendak

I said anything I wanted because I don't believe in children I don't believe in childhood. I don't believe that there's a demarcation. 'Oh you mustn't tell them that. You mustn't tell them that.' You tell them anything you want. Just tell them if it's true. If it's true you tell them. — Maurice Sendak

Illustrations have as much to say as the text. The trick is to say the same thing, but in a different way. It's no good being an illustrator who is saying a lot that is on his or her mind, if it has nothing to do with the text ... the artist must override the story, but he must also override his own ego for the sake of the story. — Maurice Sendak

I'm totally crazy, I know that. I don't say that to be a smartass, but I know that that's the very essence of what makes my work good. And I know my work is good. Not everybody likes it, that's fine. I don't do it for everybody. Or anybody. I do it because I can't not do it. — Maurice Sendak

There should be a place where only the things you want to happen, happen — Maurice Sendak

To be a healthy person, you have to be sympathetic to the child you once were and maintain the continuity between you as a child and you as an adult. — Maurice Sendak

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

Let the wild rumpus start! — Maurice Sendak

Venturing back further, learning is so slow. Accomplishment is so slow. Experiencing and evaluating your experience is so slow. — Maurice Sendak

Things come to you without you necessarily knowing what they mean. — Maurice Sendak

Inside all of us is HOPE. Inside all of us is FEAR. Inside all of us is ADVENTURE. Inside all of us is A WILD THING. — Maurice Sendak

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

I'm still as enamored and turned on by work as I was when I was young. — Maurice Sendak

Artistic style is only a means to an end, and the more styles you have, the better. To get trapped in a style is to lose all flexibility. If you have only one style, then you're going to do the same book over and over, which is pretty dull. Lots of styles permit you to walk in and out of books. So, develop a fine style, a fat style, and fairly slim style, and a really rough style.
As an aspiring artist, you should strive for originality of vision. Have something to say and a fresh way of saying it. No story is worth the writing, no picture worth the making, if it's not the work of the imagination. — Maurice Sendak

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

Children are the best living audience in the world because they are so thoroughly honest. — Maurice Sendak

I refuse to cater to the bullshit of innocence. — Maurice Sendak

And it's one of the sexiest things you will ever read of how slow you should take the peach. Don't rush it. — Maurice Sendak

Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children's letters - sometimes very hastily - but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, "Dear Jim: I loved your card." Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, "Jim loved your card so much he ate it." That to me was one of the highest compliments I've ever received. He didn't care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it. — Maurice Sendak

I'm scared of watching a TV show about vampires. I can't fall asleep. — Maurice Sendak

Each month is gay, Each season nice, When eating Chicken soup With rice — Maurice Sendak

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

Kids never get pissed at their parents. Unheard of. — Maurice Sendak

I'm not afraid of death. — Maurice Sendak

What is the point of it all? Not leaving legacies. But being ripe. Being ripe. — Maurice Sendak

All I liked to do when I was a kid was draw. — Maurice Sendak

It dawned on me that art was the way I could survive. — Maurice Sendak

It is sometimes hard to be a family. — Maurice Sendak

I cry a lot because I miss people. — Maurice Sendak

Because love is so enormous, the only thing you can think of doing is swallowing the person that you love entirely. — Maurice Sendak

I was a very sickly child. My parents were immigrants. They were not decorous. They were not discreet. They always thought I was gonna die. — Maurice Sendak

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

A book is really like a lover. It arranges itself in your life in a way that is beautiful. — Maurice Sendak

I am not a religious person, nor do I have any regrets. — Maurice Sendak

I'm not obsessed with angels but I do adore angels. — Maurice Sendak

The day after Paul Newman was dead, he was twice as dead. — Maurice Sendak

Yes, there have to be places for safe wonderful stories. — 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

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

I was sickly as a child and gravitated to books and drawing. During my early teen years, I spent hundreds of hours at my window, sketching neighborhood children at play. I sketched and listened, and those notebooks became the fertile field of my work later on. There is not a book I have written or a picture I have drawn that does not, in some way, owe them its existence. — Maurice Sendak

Herman Melville said that artists have to take a dive and either you hit your head on a rock and you split your skull and you die ... or that blow to the head is so inspiring that you come back and do the best work that you ever did. BUT you have to take the dive and you do not know what the results will be. — Maurice Sendak

If you're making it up, make it up good. And then believe in what you made up. — Maurice Sendak

And [he] sailed back over a year
and in and out of weeks
and through a day
and into the night of his very own room
where he found his supper waiting for him
and it was still hot — Maurice Sendak

My being gay was something of not great interest to me. — Maurice Sendak

There's so much more to book than just reading — Maurice Sendak

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

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

I don't know how to write a children's book. — Maurice Sendak

I'll eat you up I love you so. — Maurice Sendak

Grown-ups are afraid for children. It's not children who are afraid. — Maurice Sendak

As a child, I felt that books were holy objects, to be caressed, rapturously sniffed, and devotedly provided for. I gave my life to them. I still do. I continue to do what I did as a child; dream of books, make books and collect books. — Maurice Sendak

But the wild things cried, "Oh please don't go - we'll eat you up - we love you so!"
And Max said, "No!"
The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved goodbye. — Maurice Sendak

[There are] games children must conjure up to combat an awful fact of childhood: the fact of their vulnerability to fear, anger, hate and frustration - all the emotions that are an ordinary part of their lives and that they can perceive only as as ungovernable and dangerous forces. To master these forces, children turn to fantasy: that imagined world where disturbing emotional situations are solved to their satisfaction. — Maurice Sendak

The magic of childhood is the strangeness of childhood - the uniqueness that makes us see things that other people don't see. — Maurice Sendak

You can start making up any kind of story if you want to. — Maurice Sendak

I'm gay. I just didn't think it was anybody's business. — Maurice Sendak

What I do as best I can is out of a deep respect for children, for how difficult their world is. — Maurice Sendak

Kids books Grownup books That's just marketing. Books are books, — Maurice Sendak

I didn't have much confidence in myself ... never. — Maurice Sendak

I have this idiot name tag which says 'controversial.' — Maurice Sendak

I don't need faith. — Maurice Sendak

Oh, please don't go - we'll eat you up - we love you so! — Maurice Sendak

I refuse to lie to children. — Maurice Sendak

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

Truthfullness to life-both fantasy life and factual life-is the basis of all great art. — Maurice Sendak

It's no fun being lonely. — Maurice Sendak

Sendak is in search of what he calls a "yummy death". William Blake set the standard, jumping up from his death bed at the last minute to start singing. "A happy death," says Sendak. "It can be done." He lifts his eyebrows to two peaks. "If you're William Blake and totally crazy. — Maurice Sendak

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

I don't have kids at all and I thank God that I never did. — Maurice Sendak

Life has only gotten better personally for me as I've gotten older. I mean, being young was such a gross waste of time. I was just such a miserable, miserable person. — Maurice Sendak

I never set out to write books for children. I don't have a feeling that I'm gonna save children or my life is devoted. — Maurice Sendak

I've always loved pigs: the shape of them, the look of them, and the fact that they are so intelligent. — Maurice Sendak

Can you draw a picture on the blackboard when somebody doesn't want you to? asked the rooster promptly.
"Yes," answered Kenny," if you write them a very nice poem."
"What is an only goat?"
"A lonely goat," answered Kenny.
The rooster shut one eye and looked at Kenny.
"can you hear a horse on the roof?" he asked.
"If you know how to listen in the night," said Kenny.
"Can you fix a broken promise?"
"Yes," said Kenny,"if it only looks broken,but really isn't."
The rooster drew his head back into his feathers and whispered, "What is a very narrow escape?"
"When somebody almost stops loving you," Kenny whispered back. — Maurice Sendak

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

Emeralds,' said the rabbit. 'Emeralds make a lovely gift. — Maurice Sendak

I really don't like the city anymore. You get pushed and harassed and people grope you. It's too tumultuous. It's too crazy. — Maurice Sendak

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

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

If there's any advice I have to give, I would say it's that. If you're looking for a way to get closer to your kids, there ain't no better way than to grab 'em and read. And if you put them in front of a computer or a TV, you are abandoning them. You are abandoning them because they are sitting on a couch or a floor and they may be hugging a dog, but they ain't hugging you. — Maurice Sendak

From their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things. — Maurice Sendak

An illustrator in my own mind - and this is not a truth of any kind - is someone who so falls in love with writing that he wishes he had written it, and the closest he can get to is illustrating it. And the next thing you learn, you have to find something unique in this book, which perhaps even the author was not entirely aware of. And that's what you hold on to, and that's what you add to the pictures: a whole Other Story that you believe in, that you think is there. — Maurice Sendak

My parents were very indiscrete. — Maurice Sendak

It is a blessing to get old. It is a blessing to find the time to do the things, to read the books, to listen to the music. I have nothing now but praise for my life. — Maurice Sendak

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

We've educated children to think that spontaneity is inappropriate. Children are willing to expose themselves to experiences. We aren't. Grownups always say they protect their children, but they're really protecting themselves. Besides, you can't protect children. They know everything. — Maurice Sendak

Children do live in fantasy and reality; they move back and forth very easily in a way we no longer remember how to do. — Maurice Sendak

I have nothing now but praise for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more ... What I dread is the isolation ... There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready. — Maurice Sendak

An illustration is an enlargement, and interpretation of the text, so that the reader will comprehend the words better. As an artist, you are always serving the words.
You must never illustrate exactly what is written. You must find a space in the text so that the pictures can do the work. Then you must let the words take over where words do it best. It's a funny kind of juggling act. — Maurice Sendak

Children surviving childhood is my obsessive theme and my life's concern, — Maurice Sendak

I want to see me to the end working, living for myself. Ripeness is all. — Maurice Sendak

I'm an illustrator. I have to accept my role. — Maurice Sendak

There is no such thing as fantasy unrelated to reality — Maurice Sendak

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

I only have one subject. The question I am obsessed with is: How do children survive? — Maurice Sendak

We all want to be renewed, don't we? — Maurice Sendak

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