Maurice Sendak
Maurice Sendak
Maurice Bernard Sendakwas an American illustrator and writer of children's books. He became widely known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, first published in 1963. Born to Jewish-Polish parents, his childhood was affected by the death of many of his family members during the Holocaust. Besides Where the Wild Things Are, Sendak also wrote works such as In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, and illustrated many works by other authors including the Little Bear books by Else...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionChildren's Author
Date of Birth10 June 1928
CityBrooklyn, NY
CountryUnited States of America
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'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 don't want to lose hope.
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.
And it's one of the sexiest things you will ever read of how slow you should take the peach. Don't rush it.
Make it dangerous or it's not worth doing.
Dreams raise the emotional level of what I'm doing at the moment.
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 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.
If you're making it up, make it up good. And then believe in what you made up.
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 was a very sickly child. My parents were immigrants. They were not decorous. They were not discreet. They always thought I was gonna die.
William Blake really is important, my cornerstone. Nobody ever told me before he did that childhood was such a damned serious business.