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.
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.
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.
I'm not obsessed with angels but I do adore angels.
I stress character, character, character.
The world is twice as crazy as it's ever been.
I do not remember any proper children's books in my childhood. I was not exposed to them.
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.Collection: Adventure
Children do live in fantasy and reality; they move back and forth very easily in a way we no longer remember how to do.Collection: Children
I wish you all good things. Live your life, live your life, live your life.Collection: Live Your Life
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.Collection: Children
A book is really like a lover. It arranges itself in your life in a way that is beautiful.Collection: Inspirational
Knowledge is the driving force that puts creative passion to work.Collection: Passion
And the walls became the world all around.Collection: Wall
Art has always been my salvation. And my gods are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Mozart. I believe in them with all my heart. And 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. Or if I walk in the woods and I see an animal, the purpose of my life was to see that animal. I can recollect it, I can notice it. I’m here to take note of. And that is beyond my ego, beyond anything that belongs to me, an observer, an observer.Collection: Art
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.Collection: Mother
That's what art is. You don't make up stories. You live your life.Collection: Art
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.Collection: Dog
And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.Collection: Children
There should be a place where only the things you want to happen, happen.Collection: Want
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.Collection: Artist
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.Collection: Writing
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.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Dream
And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!Collection: Max
Children are tough, though we tend to think of them as fragile. They have to be tough. Childhood is not easy. We sentimentalize children, but they know what's real and what's not. They understand metaphor and symbol. If children are different from us, they are more spontaneous. Grown-up lives have become overlaid with dross.Collection: Children
Kids tell you what they think, not what they think they should think.Collection: Kids
You can start making up any kind of story if you want to.Collection: Stories
Truthfullness to life-both fantasy life and factual life-is the basis of all great art.Collection: Art
there is no such thing as fantasy unrelated to realityCollection: Reality
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.Collection: Crazy
There's a mystery there, a clue, a nut, a bolt, and if I put it together, I find me.Collection: Nuts
I don't know how to write a children's book.Collection: Children
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 [writing] something that didn't make a lot of sense. But now I'm not. I have nothing to worry about. It doesn't matter.Collection: Writing
I know that if there’s a purpose for life, it was for me to hear Mozart.Collection: Purpose
I never spent less than two years on the text of one of my picture books, even though each of them is approximately 380 words long. Only when the text is finished ... do I begin the pictures.Collection: Book
I feel it in me like a woman having a baby, all that life churning inside me. I feel it every day; it moves, stretches, yawns. It's getting ready to be born. It knows exactly what it is.Collection: Baby
Dreams raise the emotional level of what I'm doing at the moment.Collection: Dream
Make it dangerous or it's not worth doing.Collection: Dangerous
I never can satisfy some need in me to achieve something of incredible hight. For my sake. It puzzles me deeply. And it sours my life. So there is a permanent dissatisfaction.Collection: Needs
I wanted my wild things to be frightening.Collection: Wild Things
We're animals. We're violent.Collection: Animal
I'm gay. I just didn't think it was anybody's business.Collection: Gay
You can't get rid of evil. We can't, and I feel that so intensely.Collection: Evil
And it's one of the sexiest things you will ever read of how slow you should take the peach. Don't rush it.Collection: Peaches
I am not a religious person, nor do I have any regrets. The war took care of that for me. You know, I was brought up strictly kosher, but I - it made no sense to me. It made no sense to me what was happening. So nothing of it means anything to me. Nothing. Except these few little trivial things that are related to being Jewish. ... 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.Collection: Religious
I thought that if I were going into old age I would want to do what [Giuseppe] Verdi did, which is to write extraordinary things, and to really find myself.Collection: Writing
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.Collection: Crazy
I think that if in your heart, you are seeking out a real puzzle, and you're not looking to frighten anybody, you're not looking to upset anybody, and you're looking to discuss a subject that you yourself went through when you were nine - you just don't remember the difficulties of one's own childhood.Collection: Real