Top 239 Quotes & Sayings by Maurice Sendak

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American artist Maurice Sendak.

Last updated on December 23, 2024.

Maurice Bernard Sendak was an American illustrator and writer of children's books. He became most widely known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, first published in 1963. Born to Polish-Jewish parents, his childhood was affected by the death of many of his family members during the Holocaust. Sendak also wrote works such as In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, and illustrated many works by other authors including the Little Bear books by Else Holmelund Minarik.

American - Artist | June 10, 1928 - May 8, 2012

Source: Wikipedia

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'm sick of 'Wild Things.'

Maurice Sendak

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.

Maurice Sendak

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

Maurice Sendak

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

Maurice Sendak

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

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

My parents were ignorant peasants from the Old World.

Maurice Sendak

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.

Maurice Sendak

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

Maurice Sendak

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

Maurice Sendak

I have a good life.

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

Newt Gingrich is an idiot of great renown... There's something so hopelessly gross and vile about him it's hard to take him seriously.

Maurice Sendak

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

Maurice Sendak

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.

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

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

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.

Maurice Sendak

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

Maurice Sendak

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

Maurice Sendak

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

Maurice Sendak

I grew up in a house that was in a constant state of mourning.

Maurice Sendak

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

Maurice Sendak

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.

Maurice Sendak

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.

Maurice Sendak

I refuse to lie to children.

Maurice Sendak

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

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

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

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

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'm not obsessed with angels but I do adore angels.

Maurice Sendak

I feel extremely vulnerable.

Maurice Sendak

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

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

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

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

I hate people.

Maurice Sendak

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

Maurice Sendak

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

Maurice Sendak

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

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

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

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

Maurice Sendak

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.

Maurice Sendak

I became a set designer for opera.

Maurice Sendak

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

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

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

Maurice Sendak

I don't need faith.

Maurice Sendak

Kids lead a very private life.

Maurice Sendak

There must be more to life than having everything.

Maurice Sendak

A book is a book is a book.

Maurice Sendak

I think people should be given a test much like driver's tests as to whether they're capable of being parents!