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'm an illustrator. I have to accept my role.
Things come to you without you necessarily knowing what they mean.
I only have one subject. The question I am obsessed with is: How do children survive?
I didn't have much confidence in myself... never.
I am not a religious person, nor do I have any regrets.
I don't write for children. I write and someone says it's for children.
I can't believe I've turned into a typical old man.
I'm not Hans Christian Anderson. Nobody's gonna make a statue in the park with a lot of scrambling kids climbing up me. I won't have it, okay?
Venturing back further, learning is so slow. Accomplishment is so slow. Experiencing and evaluating your experience is so slow.
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.
I want to see me to the end working, living for myself. Ripeness is all.
The magic of childhood is the strangeness of childhood — the uniqueness that makes us see things that other people don't see.
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 became a set designer for opera. I'm a great opera buff, I love classical music, and I needed a time-out.