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I Think That If In Your Heart, You Are Seeking Out A Real Puzzle, And You're Not Looking To Frighten Anybody, You're Not Looking To Upset Anybody, And You're Looking To Discuss A Subject That You Yourself Went Through When You Were Nine - You Just Don't Remember The Difficulties Of One's Own Childhood.

-Maurice Sendak

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I Think That If

Maurice Sendak

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I Think That If In Your Heart, You Are Seeking Out A Real Puzzle, And You're Not Looking To Frighten Anybody, You're Not Looking To Upset Anybody, And You're Looking To Discuss A Subject That You Yourself Went Through When You Were Nine - You Just Don't Remember The Difficulties Of One's Own Childhood.

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And It Is Through Fantasy That Children Achieve Catharsis. It Is The Best Means They Have For Taming Wild Things.

Sendak Is In Search Of What He Calls A "yummy Death". William Blake Set The Standard, Jumping Up From His Death Bed At The Last Minute To Start Singing. "a Happy Death," Says Sendak. "it Can Be Done." He Lifts His Eyebrows To Two Peaks. "if You're William Blake And Totally Crazy.

One Of The Few Graces Of Getting Old - And God Knows There Are Few Graces - Is That If You've Worked Hard And Kept Your Nose To The Grindstone, Something Happens: The Body Gets Old But The Creative Mechanism Is Refreshed, Smoothed And Oiled And Honed. That Is The Grace. That Is What's Happening To Me.

I Had A Brother Who Was My Savior, Made My Childhood Bearable.

We're Animals. We're Violent. We're Criminal. And If I've Done Anything, I've Had Kids Express Themselves As They Are.

I Don't Want To Lose Hope.

Truthfullness To Life-both Fantasy Life And Factual Life-is The Basis Of All Great Art.

My Sister Had Her Own Room. She Also Had Innumerable Boyfriends. I Had A Yo-yo Collection That Was Beyond Belief, And The Reason I Had It Was Mostly That I Would Stand In The Doorway Of The Living Room Watching Her And Her Boyfriend. Finally She Caught On How To Get This Kid Out Of The Way. Give Him A Yo-yo!

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.

When You Hide Another Story In A Story, That’s The Story I Am Telling The Children.

I Never Thought Of Bumble-ardy In That Way. But I Still Have That Same Deep Feeling For Children Who Are In Dire Trouble. I See Bumble-ardy As A Lonely, Unhappy Kid Who Is Doing The Very Best He Can To Be In The World, To Have A Party.

All I Liked To Do When I Was A Kid Was Draw. My Childhood Was Like My Adult Life: Drawing Pictures With My Brother, Putting The Comics Up On The Glass Window, And Tracing The Characters Onto Tracing Paper Or Drawing Paper And Then Coloring Them. That And Making Things Was All We Ever Did.

God, I Had Great People In My Life.

Oh, Please Don't Go — We'll Eat You Up — We Love You So!

There's A Mystery There, A Clue, A Nut, A Bolt, And If I Put It Together, I Find Me.

There Is No Such Thing As Fantasy Unrelated To Reality

There's Something In This Country That Is So Opposed To Understanding The Complexity Of Children.

Why Is My Needle Stuck In Childhood? I Don't Know Why. I Guess It's Because That's Where My Heart Is.

There Are Certain Pieces Of Music That Are Always Attached To Certain Books.

I Had Been Reading A Fabulous Book [the Man Verdi, By Frank Walker] About [giuseppe] Verdi, Whom I Adore.

My Father Could Be Very Witty, Even If The Humor Was Always On The Darker Side Of Irony.

Dreams Raise The Emotional Level Of What I'm Doing At The Moment.

I Hate [ebooks]. It's Like Making Believe There's Another Kind Of Sex. There Isn't Another Kind Of Sex. There Isn't Another Kind Of Book! A Book Is A Book Is A Book.

Kids Don't Know About Best Sellers. They Go For What They Enjoy. They Aren't Star Chasers And They Don't Suck Up. It's Why I Like Them.

I Stress Character, Character, Character.

And The Walls Became The World All Around.

I Often Went To Bed Without Supper Cause I Hated My Mother's Cooking. So, To Go To Bed Without Supper Was Not A Torture To Me. If She Was Gonna Hurt Me, She'd Make Me Eat.

I’m Not Hans Christian Andersen. Nobody’s Gonna Make A Statue In The Park With A Lot Of Scrambling Kids Climbing Up Me. I Won’t Have It, Okay?

I Wish You All Good Things. Live Your Life, Live Your Life, Live Your Life.

I Have This Idiot Name Tag Which Says 'controversial.'

Because Love Is So Enormous, The Only Thing You Can Think Of Doing Is Swallowing The Person That You Love Entirely.

There Should Be A Place Where Only The Things You Want To Happen, Happen.

And The Wild Things Roared Their Terrible Roars And Gnashed Their Terrible Teeth And Rolled Their Terrible Eyes And Showed Their Terrible Claws.

Each Month Is Gay, Each Season Nice, When Eating Chicken Soup With Rice

You Don't Want To Do Something That's All Terrifying.

I Don't Believe In An Afterlife But I Still Fully Expect To See My Brother Again.

Mothers And Children Are Human Beings, And They Will Sometimes Do The Wrong Thing.

I Would Infinitely Prefer A Daughter.

Mother Daughter

I Refuse To Cater To The Bullshit Of Innocence.

How Do You Write For Children? I Really Have Never Figured That Out. So I Decided To Just Ignore It

If There's Any Advice I Have To Give, I Would Say It's That. If You're Looking For A Way To Get Closer To Your Kids, There Ain't No Better Way Than To Grab 'em And Read. And If You Put Them In Front Of A Computer Or A Tv, You Are Abandoning Them. You Are Abandoning Them Because They Are Sitting On A Couch Or A Floor And They May Be Hugging A Dog, But They Ain't Hugging You.

As A Child, I Felt That Books Were Holy Objects, To Be Caressed, Rapturously Sniffed, And Devotedly Provided For. I Gave My Life To Them. I Still Do. I Continue To Do What I Did As A Child; Dream Of Books, Make Books And Collect Books.

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.

We All Want To Be Renewed, Don't We?

My Brother, Who Was Older, Was The Gifted One, Much More Talented Than I.

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 Exposure To Such Experiences.

Painful Experiences

'hansel And Gretel' Is One Of The Scariest Stories Ever Written! Psychotic Mother; Stupid, Inane Father.

There Are So Many Beautiful Things In The World Which I Will Have To Leave When I Die, But I'm Ready, I'm Ready, I'm Ready.

Thank God That Bumble-ardy's Parents Are Dead So We Don't Have To Wonder What They Did To Him. We Only Know That They Were Famous, And Famous People Have Unhappy Children For The Most Part. They Don't Have The Time To Take Care Of Them. So He's A Troubled Pig-boy, A Kid You've Got To Watch.

Children Are Tough, Though We Tend To Think Of Them As Fragile. They Have To Be Tough. Childhood Is Not Easy. We Sentimentalize Children, But They Know What's Real And What's Not. They Understand Metaphor And Symbol. If Children Are Different From Us, They Are More Spontaneous. Grown-up Lives Have Become Overlaid With Dross.

Herman Melville Said That Artists Have To Take A Dive And Either You Hit Your Head On A Rock And You Split Your Skull And You Die … Or That Blow To The Head Is So Inspiring That You Come Back And Do The Best Work That You Ever Did. But You Have To Take The Dive And You Do Not Know What The Results Will Be.

I Don't Know How To Write A Children's Book.

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.

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.

It Was Inconceivable To Me As A Child That I Would Be An Adult. I Mean, One Assumed That It Would Happen, But Obviously It Didn't Happen, Or If It Did, It Happened When Your Back Was Turned, And Then Suddenly You Were There. So I Couldn't Have Thought About It Much.

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.

I Have To Accept My Role. I Will Never Kill Myself Like Vincent Van Gogh. Nor Will I Paint Beautiful Water Lilies Like Monet. I Can't Do That. I'm In The Idiot Role Of Being A Kiddie Book Person.

Make It Dangerous Or It's Not Worth Doing.

I Don't Write For Children. I Write, And Somebody Says, 'that's For Children.'

Newt Gingrich Is An Idiot Of Great Renown... There's Something So Hopelessly Gross And Vile About Him It's Hard To Take Him Seriously.

I Never Can Satisfy Some Need In Me To Achieve Something Of Incredible Hight. For My Sake. It Puzzles Me Deeply. And It Sours My Life. So There Is A Permanent Dissatisfaction.

Once A Little Boy Sent Me A Charming Card With A Little Drawing On It. I Loved It. I Answer All My Children’s Letters — Sometimes Very Hastily — But This One I Lingered Over. I Sent Him A Card And I Drew A Picture Of A Wild Thing On It. I Wrote, “dear Jim: I Loved Your Card.” Then I Got A Letter Back From His Mother And She Said, “jim Loved Your Card So Much He Ate It.” That To Me Was One Of The Highest Compliments I’ve Ever Received. He Didn’t Care That It Was An Original Maurice Sendak Drawing Or Anything. He Saw It, He Loved It, He Ate It.

I'm Totally Crazy, I Know That. I Don't Say That To Be A Smartass, But I Know That That's The Very Essence Of What Makes My Work Good. And I Know My Work Is Good. Not Everybody Likes It, That's Fine. I Don't Do It For Everybody. Or Anybody. I Do It Because I Can't Not Do It.

Venturing Back Further, Learning Is So Slow. Accomplishment Is So Slow. Experiencing And Evaluating Your Experience Is So Slow.

I'm Not Jaded. I Never Have Been Jaded. I've Always Been Surprised At My Success. I've Always Enjoyed It.

Bumble-ardy Looks Like A Happy Book. That's The Funniest Thing About It. But This Was Survival. I Was Working Very Hard To Survive.

Working Very Hard

And It's One Of The Sexiest Things You Will Ever Read Of How Slow You Should Take The Peach. Don't Rush It.

I Did Not Know How To Paint A Mural. I Did Not Know How To Prepare The Surface. There Was Nobody From The Renaissance Around Who Could Advise Me, And I Did The Best I Could.

My Father Belonged To A Jewish Social Club.

The Magic Of Childhood Is The Strangeness Of Childhood — The Uniqueness That Makes Us See Things That Other People Don't See.

Grown-ups Desperately Need To Feel Safe, And Then They Project Onto The Kids. But What None Of Us Seem To Realize Is How Smart Kids Are. They Don’t Like What We Write For Them, What We Dish Up For Them, Because It’s Vapid, So They’ll Go For The Hard Words, They’ll Go For The Hard Concepts, They’ll Go For The Stuff Where They Can Learn Something. Not Didactic Things, But Passionate Things.

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.

Children Surviving Childhood Is My Obsessive Theme And My Life's Concern.

A Book Is Really Like A Lover. It Arranges Itself In Your Life In A Way That Is Beautiful.

Kids Books Grownup Books That's Just Marketing. Books Are Books.

I Thought That If I Were Going Into Old Age I Would Want To Do What [giuseppe] Verdi Did, Which Is To Write Extraordinary Things, And To Really Find Myself.

I Want To See Me To The End Working, Living For Myself. Ripeness Is All.

I Want To Write Something So Simple, So Short And So Silly... And I Want It To Be For My Brother.

I Think That If In Your Heart, You Are Seeking Out A Real Puzzle, And You're Not Looking To Frighten Anybody, You're Not Looking To Upset Anybody, And You're Looking To Discuss A Subject That You Yourself Went Through When You Were Nine - You Just Don't Remember The Difficulties Of One's Own Childhood.

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, Little Woman. I Feel Better.

I Was Sickly As A Child And Gravitated To Books And Drawing. During My Early Teen Years, I Spent Hundreds Of Hours At My Window, Sketching Neighborhood Children At Play. I Sketched And Listened, And Those Notebooks Became The Fertile Field Of My Work Later On. There Is Not A Book I Have Written Or A Picture I Have Drawn That Does Not, In Some Way, Owe Them Its Existence.

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.

And Max, The King Of All Wild Things, Was Lonely And Wanted To Be Where Someone Loved Him Best Of All.

I Know That If There’s A Purpose For Life, It Was For Me To Hear Mozart.

The Fan Mail I Get From Kids Are Asking Me Questions Which They Do Not Ask Their Mothers And Fathers. Because If They Had, Why Write To Me, A Perfect Stranger?

I Was A Very Sickly Child. My Parents Were Immigrants. They Were Not Decorous. They Were Not Discreet. They Always Thought I Was Gonna Die.

In Plain Terms, A Child Is A Complicated Creature Who Can Drive You Crazy. There's A Cruelty To Childhood, There's An Anger.

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.

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.

In Another Project I Worked On Just A Few Years Ago, A Staging Of Peter And The Wolf, Which I Translated Into Yiddish And Sang On A Stage In New York City. Thank God Very Few People Knew I Was Doing It! But The Kids In The Audience Loved It - Even Though It Was All In Yiddish.

And [he] Sailed Back Over A Year And In And Out Of Weeks And Through A Day And Into The Night Of His Very Own Room Where He Found His Supper Waiting For Him And It Was Still Hot

I Grew Up In A House That Was In A Constant State Of Mourning.

I Cry A Lot Because I Miss People. They Die And I Can't Stop Them. They Leave Me And I Love Them More.

I've Always Loved Pigs: The Shape Of Them, The Look Of Them, And The Fact That They Are So Intelligent.

One Of The Beauties Of Being An Artist Is That You Can Create A Whole New World, With Circumstances That Are Better In Your Invented World Than They Are In The Real World.

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.

Inside All Of Us Is... Hope. Inside All Of Us Is... Fear. Inside All Of Us Is... Adventure. Inside All Of Us Is A Wild Thing.

I Can't Believe I've Turned Into A Typical Old Man. I Can't Believe It. I Was Young Just Minutes Ago.

Kids Never Get Pissed At Their Parents. Unheard Of.

Knowledge Is The Driving Force That Puts Creative Passion To Work.

Life Has Only Gotten Better Personally For Me As I've Gotten Older. I Mean, Being Young Was Such A Gross Waste Of Time. I Was Just Such A Miserable, Miserable Person.

Miserable Person

If You're Making It Up, Make It Up Good. And Then Believe In What You Made Up.

All I Wanted Was To Be Straight So My Parents Could Be Happy. They Never, Never, Never Knew.

I'm Scared Of Watching A Tv Show About Vampires. I Can't Fall Asleep.

Kids Tell You What They Think, Not What They Think They Should Think.

Girls Are Infinitely More Complicated Than Boys, And Women More Than Men.

It's Only Adults Who Read The Top Layers Most Of The Time. I Think Children Read The Internal Meanings Of Everything.

I Believe There Is No Part Of Our Lives, Our Adult As Well As Child Life, When We're Not Fantasizing, But We Prefer To Relegate Fantasy To Children, As Though It Were Some Tomfoolery Only Fit For The Immature Minds Of The Young. Children Do Live In Fantasy And Reality; They Move Back And Forth Very Easily In A Way We No Longer Remember How To Do.

It Is Such An Abundance Of Idiocy That You Lose Courage. That You Lose Hope. I Don't Want To Lose Hope. I Get Through Every Day. I'm Pretty Good. I Work. I Sleep. I Sing. I Walk.

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.

I Became A Set Designer For Opera. I'm A Great Opera Buff, I Love Classical Music, And I Needed A Time-out.

Classical Music

There Must Be More To Life Than Having Everything.

From Their Earliest Years Children Live On Familiar Terms With Disrupting Emotions, Fear And Anxiety Are An Intrinsic Part Of Their Everyday Lives, They Continually Cope With Frustrations As Best They Can. And It Is Through Fantasy That Children Achieve Catharsis. It Is The Best Means They Have For Taming Wild Things.

A Whole New World Of Italian Music Was Springing Up, And [giuseppe] Verdi Was Seen As Old. Boito Got Verdi All Excited About The Possibility Of Doing Another Opera, Another Kind Of Opera. In Fact, Verdi Composed His Two Best Operas, Otello And Falstaff, In His Eighties.

Bumble-ardy Is A Very Wicked Little Child As Far As I'm Concerned. He's Not To Be Trusted.

We're Animals. We're Violent. We're Criminal. We're Not So Far Away From The Gorillas And The Apes, Those Beautiful Creatures.

Children Are The Best Living Audience In The World Because They Are So Thoroughly Honest.

I'm Totally Crazy, I Know That.

I Think People Should Be Given A Test Much Like Driver's Tests As To Whether They're Capable Of Being Parents!

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.

I Had Lost My Sister Recently, Too, Which Meant That My Whole Family Was Gone. I Was The Baby Of The Family. There Were Five Sendaks And There Were Five Wild Things, And Now There's Only One Sendak, And He's About To Bite The Dust, Too! Life, As I Said Before, Was Very Difficult At That Time And So It Was Natural That There Would Be A Change In The Look Of Things. Also, I Was Very Impressed With My Own Strength In Doing This Under The Circumstances In Which I Was Living.

Art Has Always Been My Salvation. And My Gods Are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Mozart. I Believe In Them With All My Heart. And 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. Or If I Walk In The Woods And I See An Animal, The Purpose Of My Life Was To See That Animal. I Can Recollect It, I Can Notice It. I’m Here To Take Note Of. And That Is Beyond My Ego, Beyond Anything That Belongs To Me, An Observer, An Observer.

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

And Now," Cried Max, "let The Wild Rumpus Start!

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.

We're Supposed To Be Civilized. We're Supposed To Go To Work Every Day. We're Supposed To Be Nice To Our Friends And Send Christmas Cards To Our Parents.

We've Educated Children To Think Spontaneity Is Inappropriate.

I Became A Set Designer For Opera.

I Said Anything I Wanted Because I Don't Believe In Children I Don't Believe In Childhood. I Don't Believe That There's A Demarcation. 'oh You Mustn't Tell Them That. You Mustn't Tell Them That.' You Tell Them Anything You Want. Just Tell Them If It's True. If It's True You Tell Them.

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, If It Has Nothing To Do With The Text. . . The Artist Must Override The Story, But He Must Also Override His Own Ego For The Sake Of The Story.

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.

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 Wanted To Live. I Wanted To Grow Up.

That's What Art Is. You Don't Make Up Stories. You Live Your Life.

Childhood Is Cannibals And Psychotics Vomiting In Your Mouth!

You Can Start Making Up Any Kind Of Story If You Want To.

To Be A Healthy Person, You Have To Be Sympathetic To The Child You Once Were And Maintain The Continuity Between You As A Child And You As An Adult.

All I Liked To Do When I Was A Kid Was Draw.

Parents Shouldn't Assume Children Are Made Out Of Sugar Candy And Will Break And Collapse Instantly. Kids Don't. We Do.

Children Do Live In Fantasy And Reality; They Move Back And Forth Very Easily In A Way We No Longer Remember How To Do.

As A Kid, All I Thought About Was Death. But You Can't Tell Your Parents That.

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.

I Hate Those E-books. They Can Not Be The Future... They May Well Be... I Will Be Dead.

Childhood Is A Tricky Business. Usually, Something Goes Wrong.

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.

Kids Lead A Very Private Life.

I'm Getting Old. And I'm Disappointed In Everything Just The Way Old People Traditionally, Boringly Are. That Bothers Me Because Is It Too Traditional? Am I Not Fighting Hard Enough? I Don't Feel The Fight. I Don't Feel It.

It's No Fun Being Lonely.

If Children Are Different From Us, They Are More Spontaneous. Grown-up Lives Have Become Overlaid With Dross.

I Have Been Doodling With Ink And Watercolor On Paper All My Life. It's My Way Of Stirring Up My Imagination To See What I Find Hidden In My Head. I Call The Results Dream Pictures, Fantasy Sketches, And Even Brain-sharpenin G Exercises.

I Really Don't Like The City Anymore. You Get Pushed And Harassed And People Grope You. It's Too Tumultuous. It's Too Crazy.

I Never Set Out To Write Books For Children. I Don't Have A Feeling That I'm Gonna Save Children Or My Life Is Devoted.

I Do Not Remember Any Proper Children's Books In My Childhood. I Was Not Exposed To Them.

I Think There Is Something Barbaric In Children, And It's Missing In Lots Of Books For Them Because We Don't Like To Think Of It. We Want Them To Be Happy [but] Childhood Is A Very Tough Time.

Then From Far Away Across The World He Smelled Good Things To Eat, So He Gave Up Being King Of The Wild Things.

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.

Art Has Always Been My Salvation.

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.

I Want To Be Free Again. I Want To Be Free Like When I Was A Kid, Working With My Brother And Making Toy Airplanes And A Whole Model Of The World's Fair In 1939 Out Of Wax.

The Day After Paul Newman Was Dead, He Was Twice As Dead.

That Always Seemed To Be The Most Critical Test That A Child Was Confronted With - Loss Of Parents, Loss Of Direction, Loss Of Love. Can You Live Without A Mother And A Father?

Sipping Once, Sipping Twice, Sipping Chicken Soup With Rice.

I Don't Believe In Things Literally For Children. That's A Reduction.

It Was A Very Difficult Time. I Was Working On [umble-ardy] When My Partner And Friend Was Dying Of Cancer. We Set Up A Room In The House To Be Like A Hospital Room. Eugene Died, And Then I Had Bypass Surgery. I Was Doing The Book To Stay Sane While All This Was Going On.

As An Aspiring Artist, You Should Strive For Originality Of Vision. Have Something To Say And A Fresh Way Of Saying It. No Story Is Worth The Writing, No Picture Worth The Making, If It’s Not The Work Of The Imagination.

I Write Books That Seem More Suitable For Children, And That's Ok With Me. They Are A Better Audience And Tougher Critics. Kids Tell You What They Think, Not What They Think They Should Think.

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.

Emeralds,' Said The Rabbit. 'emeralds Make A Lovely Gift.

For My Father The One Calamity Was That My Brother And Sister And I Never Learned To Swim. My Father, Who Was Very Macho, Was A Strong Swimmer And Was Terribly Disappointed To Have Children Who Didn't Swim. Once When My Mother Was Sitting In A Beach Chair - I Can Still See The Big Umbrella - She Called To My Father, "throw Them In! Throw Them In! They'll Swim!" So He Did. Then He Looked Down, And There Were The Three Sendak Children Lying Perfectly Still Underwater, Not Fighting For Life!

[drawing] And Making Things Was All We Ever Did. My Brother And I Built The Entire New York World's Fair Of 1939 In Miniature Out Of Wax. The Floor Of Our Room Was Covered With Little Waxen Buildings. Nobody Else Could Come In.

My Life In Brooklyn Was In Constant Danger Because Of My Bad Health.

I'm Gay. I Just Didn't Think It Was Anybody's Business.

You Can't Get Rid Of Evil. We Can't, And I Feel That So Intensely.

I Wanted My Wild Things To Be Frightening.

I Think It Is Unnatural To Think That There Is Such A Thing As A Blue-sky, White-clouded Happy Childhood For Anybody. Childhood Is A Very, Very Tricky Business Of Surviving It. Because If One Thing Goes Wrong Or Anything Goes Wrong, And Usually Something Goes Wrong, Then You Are Compromised As A Human Being. You're Going To Trip Over That For A Good Part Of Your Life.

Peter Rabbit, For All Its Gentle Tininess, Loudly Proclaims That No Story Is Worth The Writing, No Picture Worth The Making, If It Is Not A Work Of Imagination.

An Illustrator In My Own Mind - And This Is Not A Truth Of Any Kind - Is Someone Who So Falls In Love With Writing That He Wishes He Had Written It, And The Closest He Can Get To Is Illustrating It. And The Next Thing You Learn, You Have To Find Something Unique In This Book, Which Perhaps Even The Author Was Not Entirely Aware Of. And That's What You Hold On To, And That's What You Add To The Pictures: A Whole Other Story That You Believe In, That You Think Is There.

Falling In Love

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.

We're Animals. We're Violent.

I Wanted To Be Acknowledged As An Artist, Not Just Some Kiddie-book Artist.

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.

William Blake Really Is Important, My Cornerstone. Nobody Ever Told Me Before He Did That Childhood Was Such A Damned Serious Business.

Serious Business

Then One Day My Sister Abandoned Me At The 1939 World's Fair, And That Incident Is The Essence Of In The Night Kitchen. I Was Standing There With Hundreds Of Other People Waving Back At The Little Midgets Dressed Like Bakers When I Turned Around And My Sister Was Gone! The Next Thing I Know I'm Screaming And Crying And Policemen Are Taking Me To A Big Place With Tons Of Kids Who Had All Been Abandoned Like Me. At Least I Was Old Enough To Give Them A Name And An Address.

What Is The Point Of It All? Not Leaving Legacies. But Being Ripe. Being Ripe.

Leaving A Legacy

You Cannot Write For Children They're Much Too Complicated. You Can Only Write Books That Are Of Interest To Them.

There's So Much More To A Book Than Just The Reading.

I Adored Mickey Mouse When I Was A Child. He Was The Emblem Of Happiness And Funniness.

I Know There Are Supposedly Happy People In This World. I Never Believed It, But I Take It For Granted. God Knows, They're All On Television.

It Is A Blessing To Get Old. It Is A Blessing To Find The Time To Do The Things, To Read The Books, To Listen To The Music. I Have Nothing Now But Praise For My Life.

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Alfred Eisenstaedt

Charles M. Schwab

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