maurice sendak Quotes

It's only adults who read the top layers most of the time. I think children read the internal meanings of everything.

- Maurice Sendak, The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to Present

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

- 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

There must be more to life than having everything!

- 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

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

My father could be very witty, even if the humor was always on the darker side of irony.

- 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

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

- Maurice Sendak

Childhood is a tricky business. Usually, something goes wrong.

- Maurice Sendak

You focus on telling stories,
we do everything else.