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
alone
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
anger
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
art
Childhood is a tricky business. Usually, something goes wrong.
-Maurice Sendak
business
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
dad
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
dad
As a kid, all I thought about was death. But you can't tell your parents that.
-Maurice Sendak
death
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
death
I'm not afraid of death.
-Maurice Sendak
death
The distinctions of fine art bore me to death.
-Maurice Sendak
death
As a kid, all I thought about was death.
-Maurice Sendak
death
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.
-Maurice Sendak
experience
I don't need faith.
-Maurice Sendak
faith
I hate those e-books. They can not be the future... they may well be... I will be dead.
-Maurice Sendak
future
I hate those e-books. They cannot be the future. They may well be.
-Maurice Sendak
future
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
happiness
I adored Mickey Mouse when I was a child. He was the emblem of happiness and funniness.
-Maurice Sendak
happiness
My life in Brooklyn was in constant danger because of my bad health.
-Maurice Sendak
health
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
hope
I've convinced myself - I hope I'm right - that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth.
-Maurice Sendak
hope
My father could be very witty, even if the humor was always on the darker side of irony.
-Maurice Sendak
humor
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
mom
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
mom
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.
-Maurice Sendak
money
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
movies
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
music
There are certain pieces of music that are always attached to certain books.
-Maurice Sendak
music
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.
-Maurice Sendak
power
What I do as best I can is out of a deep respect for children, for how difficult their world is.
-Maurice Sendak
respect
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
trust
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
women
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