Top 70 Maurice Sendak Quotes

Certainly we want to protect our children from new and painful experiences that are beyond their emotional comprehension and that intensify anxiety; and to a point we can prevent premature exposure to such experiences.

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 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.

I’m totally crazy, I know that.

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.’

I don’t need faith.

I’m not a religious person.

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

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

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.

I don’t believe in an afterlife but I still fully expect to see my brother again.

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

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

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

I don’t have kids at all and I thank God that I never did.

I’m a lucky buck.

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.

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.

There’s so much more to a book than just the reading.

I’m scared of watching a TV show about vampires. I can’t fall asleep.

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.

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

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

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

I became a set designer for opera.

I have a good life.

We’re supposed to do all these things which trouble us deeply because it’s so against what we naturally would want to do.

Kids are so shrewd.

I don’t write for children. I write and someone says it’s for children.

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

I didn’t have much confidence in myself… never.

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

I refuse to lie to children.

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.

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.

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

All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy.

My therapies went on forever.

I would infinitely prefer a daughter.

My work is not great, but it’s respectable.

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

Do parents sit down and tell their kids everything? I don’t know. I don’t know.

I stress character, character, character.

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.

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

Mothers and children are human beings, and they will sometimes do the wrong thing.

Parents shouldn’t assume children are made out of sugar candy and will break and collapse instantly.

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

Grown-ups are afraid for children. It’s not children who are afraid.

I’m not Hans Christian Anderson. Nobody’s gonna make a statue in the park with a lot of scrambling kids climbing up me. I won’t have it, okay?

You don’t want to do something that’s all terrifying.

Kids lead a very private life.

I was miserable as a kid.

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.

Things come to you without you necessarily knowing what they mean.

I’m not afraid of death.

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.

We’re animals. We’re violent. We’re criminal.

My parents were very indiscrete.

I feel like I don’t have a lot of time left.

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

I’m an illustrator. I have to accept my role.

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.

The world is twice as crazy as it’s ever been.

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

My parents were ignorant peasants from the Old World.

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.

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.

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