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
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.
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.
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.
there is no such thing as fantasy unrelated to reality
Children do live in fantasy and reality; they move back and forth very easily in a way we no longer remember how to do.
Things come to you without you necessarily knowing what they mean.
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?
The world is twice as crazy as it's ever been.
We're supposed to do all these things which trouble us deeply because it's so against what we naturally would want to do.
Do parents sit down and tell their kids everything? I don't know. I don't know.
Yes, there have to be places for safe wonderful stories.
I've convinced myself - I hope I'm right - that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth.
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.
I don't have kids at all and I thank God that I never did.