Maurice Sendak – 27 Quotes

27 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

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

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

Childhood is a tricky business. Usually, something goes wrong.

– Maurice Sendak

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

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

As a kid, all I thought about was death.

– Maurice Sendak

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

– Maurice Sendak

I’m not afraid of death.

– Maurice Sendak

The distinctions of fine art bore me to death.

– 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

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

I don’t need faith.

– Maurice Sendak

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

– Maurice Sendak

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

– Maurice Sendak

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

– Maurice Sendak

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

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

– Maurice Sendak

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

I’ve convinced myself – I hope I’m right – that children despair of you if you don’t tell them the truth.

– Maurice Sendak

My father could be very witty, even if the humor was always on the darker side of irony.

– Maurice Sendak

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

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

There are certain pieces of music that are always attached to certain books.

– 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

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

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