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Maurice Sendak Quotes

1928–2012 United States

Maurice Bernard Sendak (10 June 1928 – 8 May 2012) was an American writer and illustrator of children's literature.

United States
Artists
Philanthropists

Random Maurice Sendak quote

27 quotes

When you hide another story in a story, that’s the story I am telling the children.

We've educated children to think that spontaneity is inappropriate.

If children are different from us, they are more spontaneous. Grown-up lives have become overlaid with dross.

There must be more to life than having everything!

"And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!"

Where the Wild Things Are (1963)

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

I wanted my wild things to be frightening.

The Art of Maurice Sendak by Selma G. Lanes (1980)

Children are tough, though we tend to think of them as fragile. They have to be tough. Childhood is not easy.

I don't believe in things literally for children. That's a reduction.

Please don't go. We'll eat you up. We love you so.

Parting words of the Wild Things to Max in Where the Wild Things Are (1963)

We were the "chosen people," chosen to be killed?

Scares the bejesus out of people and makes them hate him. Because he's so [[good.]

NOW interview (2004)

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

I want to see me to the end working, living for myself. "Ripeness is all." Now, interpreting what ripeness is our own individual problem.

NOW interview (2004)

I’m gay. I just didn’t think it was anybody’s business … All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew.

In other words, you must not waste a second of this deliciousness which for him was life and being a great poet. That you savor every, everything that happened. I want to get ripe.

NOW interview (2004)

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

NOW interview (2004)

Herman Melville is a god. … I cherish what he did. He was a genius.

NOW interview (2004)

You can't get rid of evil. We can't, and I feel that so intensely. All the idiots that keep coming into the world and wrecking people's lives.

NOW interview (2004)

He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Maurice Sendak (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.