Maurice Sendak

“A book is really like a lover. It arranges itself in your life in a way that is beautiful. Even as a kid, my sister, who was the eldest, brought books home for me, and I think I spent more time sniffing and touching them than reading. I just remember the joy of the book, the beauty of the binding. The smelling of the interior. Happy."[Interview with Emma Brockes, The Believer, November/December, 2012]”

“There should be a place where only the things you want to happen, happen”

“The qualities that make for excellence in children's literature can be summed up in a single word: imagination. And imagination as it relates to the child is, to my mind, synonymous with fantasy. Contrary to most of the propaganda in books for the young, childhood is only partly a time of innocence. It is, in my opinion, a time of seriousness, bewilderment, and a good deal of suffering. It's also possibly the best of all times. Imagination for the child is the miraculous, freewheeling device he uses to course his way through the problems of every day....It's through fantasy that children achieve catharsis.”

“Grown-ups desperately need to feel safe, and then they project onto the kids. But what none of us seem to realize is how smart kids are. They don’t like what we write for them, what we dish up for them, because it’s vapid, so they’ll go for the hard words, they’ll go for the hard concepts, they’ll go for the stuff where they can learn something. Not didactic things, but passionate things.”

“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.”

“Let the wild rumpus start!”

“Emeralds,' said the rabbit. 'Emeralds make a lovely gift.”

“Childhood is cannibals and psychotics vomiting in your mouth!”

“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. That is obvious. But what is just as obvious — and what is too often overlooked — is the fact that from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.”

“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.”

“Can you draw a picture on the blackboard when somebody doesn't want you to? asked the rooster promptly."Yes," answered Kenny," if you write them a very nice poem.""What is an only goat?" "A lonely goat," answered Kenny.The rooster shut one eye and looked at Kenny."can you hear a horse on the roof?" he asked."If you know how to listen in the night," said Kenny."Can you fix a broken promise?""Yes," said Kenny,"if it only looks broken,but really isn't."The rooster drew his head back into his feathers and whispered, "What is a very narrow escape?""When somebody almost stops loving you," Kenny whispered back.”

“I have nothing now but praise for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more...”

“F**k them is what I say. I hate those ebooks. They can not be the future. They may well be. I will be dead. I won't give a s**t.”

“And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming wild things.”

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

“If there's anything I'm proud of in my work--it's not that I draw better; there's so many better graphic artists than me--or that I write better, no. It's--and I'm not saying I know the truth, because what the hell is that? But what I got from Ruth and Dave, a kind of fierce honesty, to not let the kid down, to not let the kid get punished, to not suffer the child to be dealt with in a boring, simpering, crushing-of-the-spirit kind of way.”

“there is no such thing as fantasy unrelated to reality”

“I said anything I wanted because I don't believe in children I don't believe in childhood. I don't believe that there's a demarcation. 'Oh you mustn't tell them that. You mustn't tell them that.' You tell them anything you want. Just tell them if it's true. If it's true you tell them.”

“. . .from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.”

“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.”

“But the wild things cried, “Oh please don't go- We'll eat you up- we love you so!”

“Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold.”

“I think it is unnatural to think that there is such a thing as a blue-sky, white-clouded happy childhood for anybody. Childhood is a very, very tricky business of surviving it. Because if one thing goes wrong or anything goes wrong, and usually something goes wrong, then you are compromised as a human being. You're going to trip over that for a good part of your life.”

“I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more.”

“The day after Paul Newman was dead, he was twice as dead.”

“Peter Rabbit, for all its gentle tininess, loudly proclaims that no story is worth the writing, no picture worth the making, if it is not a work of imagination.”

“I'll eat you up!”

“Then from far away across the world he smelled good things to eat, so he gave up being king of the wild things.”

“And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.”

“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.”

“And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.”

“Each month is gay,Each season nice,When eatingChicken soupWith rice”

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

“Sipping once, sipping twice, sipping chicken soup with rice.”

“And [he] sailed back over a yearand in and out of weeksand through a day and into the night of his very own roomwhere he found his supper waiting for himand it was still hot”

“Oh, please don't go—we'll eat you up—we love you so!”

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

“There must be more to life than having everything!”