A biography for Maurice Sendakhasn’t been written yet.
“Parents shouldn't assume children are made out of sugar candy and will break and collapse instantly.”
“All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew.”
“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.”
“My father could be very witty, even if the humor was always on the darker side of irony.”
“I refuse to lie to children. I refuse to cater to the bullshit of innocence.”
“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.”
“As a kid, all I thought about was death. But you can't tell your parents that.”
“And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming wild things.”
“I don't believe in an afterlife but I still fully expect to see my brother again.”
“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.”
“All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy.”
“I'm scared of watching a TV show about vampires. I can't fall asleep.”
“A book is a book is a book.”
“There are certain pieces of music that are always attached to certain books.”
“Childhood is cannibals and psychotics vomiting in your mouth!”
“People from New York have been calling, to see if I'm still alive. When I answer the phone, you can hear the disappointment in their voice.”
“Kids are so shrewd.”
“[There are] games children must conjure up to combat an awful fact of childhood: the fact of their vulnerability to fear, anger, hate and frustration - all the emotions that are an ordinary part of their lives and that they can perceive only as as ungovernable and dangerous forces. To master these forces, children turn to fantasy: that imagined world where disturbing emotional situations are solved to their satisfaction.”
“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.”
“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...”