Maurice Sendak Quotes

We've educated children to think that spontaneity is inappropriate. Children are willing to expose themselves to experiences. We aren't. Grownups always say they protect their children, but they're really protecting themselves. Besides, you can't protect children. They know everything.

My big concern is me and what do I do now until the time of my death. That is valid. That is useful. That is beautiful. That is creative. And also, I want to be free again. I want to be free like when I was a kid … Where we just had fun. What I mean by this is I've had my career. I've had my success. God willing, it should have happened to Herman Melville who deserved it a great deal more, you know? Imagine him being on Bill Moyers' show. Nothing good happened to Herman Melville. I want to see me to the end working, living for myself. "Ripeness is all." Now, interpreting what ripeness is our own individual problem. … So, what is the point of it all? Not leaving legacies. But being ripe. Being ripe.

And the wild things...gnashed their terrible teeth ...

There must be more to life than having everything.

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.

Let the wild rumpus start!

so that it isn't upsetting to anybody. It's something we've always known about fairy tales – they talk about incest, the Oedipus complex, about psychotic mothers, like those of Snow White and Hansel and Gretel, who throw their children out. They tell things about life which children know instinctively, and the pleasure and relief lie in finding these things expressed in language that children can live with. You can't eradicate these feelings – they exist and they're a great source of creative inspiration.

The ripeness was a letter that John Keats wrote to his brother who emigrated to America describing what it was like to have a peach or piece of a peach in his mouth. And it's one of the sexiest things you will ever read of how slow you should take the peach. Don't rush it. Let it go through your palette. Let it lie on your tongue. Let it melt a little bit. Let it run from the corners. It's like describing the most incredible sex orgy. And then, you bite. But, it must be so ripe. It must be so delicious. In other words, you must not waste a second of this deliciousness which for him was life and being a great poet. That you savor every, everything that happened. I want to get ripe.

There's so much more to book than just reading

Childhood is a tricky business. Usually something goes wrong.

A book is really like a lover. It arranges itself in your life in a way that is beautiful.

Oh, please don't go — I'll eat you up — I love you so!

I don't believe in things literally for children. That's a reduction.

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

I have nothing now but praise for my life. I am 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...There are so many beautiful things in this world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.