Quotes from Maurice Sendak

I've convinced myself - I hope I'm right - that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth.

My father could be very witty, even if the humor was always on the darker side of irony.

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.

I don't need faith.

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.

Let the wild rumpus start!

And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!

I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more.

And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.

I'll eat you up I love you so.

There should be a place where only the things you want to happen, happen

You cannot write for children. They're much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them.

And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.

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

But the wild things cried, "Oh please don't go - we'll eat you up - we love you so!" And Max said, "No!" The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved goodbye.

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.

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.

F**k them is what I say. I hate those ebooks. They can not be the future. They may well be. I will be dead. I won't give a s**t.

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.

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.

Then from far away across the world he smelled good things to eat, so he gave up being king of the wild things.

And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming wild things.

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.