Children surviving childhood is my obsessive theme and my life's concern. Maurice Sendak More Quotes by Maurice Sendak More Quotes From Maurice Sendak If I have an unusual gift, it's not that I draw particularly better than other people - I've never fooled myself about that. Rather it's that I remember things other people don't recall: the sounds and feelings and images - the emotional quality - of particular moments in childhood. Happily an essential part of myself - my dreaming life - still lives in the light of childhood. Maurice Sendak emotional light dream I don't want to lose hope. Maurice Sendak loses want I wanted my wild things to be frightening. Maurice Sendak frightening wild-things wanted We've educated children to think spontaneity is inappropriate. Maurice Sendak spontaneity children thinking And it's one of the sexiest things you will ever read of how slow you should take the peach. Don't rush it. Maurice Sendak peaches sexiest should Make it dangerous or it's not worth doing. Maurice Sendak dangerous Dreams raise the emotional level of what I'm doing at the moment. Maurice Sendak levels emotional dream I feel it in me like a woman having a baby, all that life churning inside me. I feel it every day; it moves, stretches, yawns. It's getting ready to be born. It knows exactly what it is. Maurice Sendak born baby moving If you're making it up, make it up good. And then believe in what you made up. Maurice Sendak ifs made believe 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 pockets mean children I am not a religious person, nor do I have any regrets. The war took care of that for me. You know, I was brought up strictly kosher, but I - it made no sense to me. It made no sense to me what was happening. So nothing of it means anything to me. Nothing. Except these few little trivial things that are related to being Jewish. ... 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 regret religious war I hate, loathe and despise schools.School is bad for you if you have any talent. You should be cultivating that talent in your own particular way. Maurice Sendak hate way school 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. Maurice Sendak reading beautiful book 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 parent kids children 'Hansel and Gretel' is one of the scariest stories ever written! Psychotic mother; stupid, inane father. Maurice Sendak stupid mother father I hate those e-books. They can not be the future... they may well be... I will be dead. Maurice Sendak hate may book 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 [writing] 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 noses worry writing I never spent less than two years on the text of one of my picture books, even though each of them is approximately 380 words long. Only when the text is finished ... do I begin the pictures. Maurice Sendak writing book years I would infinitely prefer a daughter. Maurice Sendak mother-daughter daughter mother I remember my own childhood vividly...I knew terrible things. But I knew I mustn't let adults know I knew. It would scare them Maurice Sendak childhood scare adults
