Maurice Sendak

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

“Illustrations have as much to say as the text. The trick is to say the same thing, but in a different way. It's no good being an illustrator who is saying a lot that is on his or her mind, i...”

“William Blake really is important, my cornerstone. Nobody ever told me before he did that childhood was such a damned serious business.”

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

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

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

“Each month is gay, Each season nice, When eating Chicken soup With rice”

“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...”

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

“If life is so critical, if Anne Frank could die, if my friend could die, children were as vulnerable as adults, and that gave me a secret purpose to my work, to make them live. Because I wan...”

“I had a brother who was my savior, made my childhood bearable.”

“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...”

“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 th...”

“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 e...”

“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.”

“I remember how much - when I was a small boy I was taken to see a version of 'Peter Pan.' I detested it. I mean, the sentimental idea that anybody would want to remain a boy.”

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

“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 thro...”

“I have a little tiny Emily Dickinson so big that I carry in my pocket everywhere. And you just read three poems of Emily. She is so brave. She is so strong. She is such a sexy, passionate, l...”

“I'm still as enamored and turned on by work as I was when I was young.”