And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming wild things. — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
I think it is unnatural to think that there is such a thing as a blue-sky, white-clouded happy childhood for anybody. Childhood… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
I only have one subject. The question I am obsessed with is: How do children survive? — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
“so that it isn't upsetting to anybody. It's something we've always known about fairy tales – they talk about incest, the Oedipus… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
Children are the best living audience in the world because they are so thoroughly honest. — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
For my father the one calamity was that my brother and sister and I never learned to swim. My father, who was… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
I remember my own childhood vividly...I knew terrible things. But I knew I mustn't let adults know I knew. It would scare… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
Grown-ups are afraid for children. It's not children who are afraid. — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
Children do live in fantasy and reality; they move back and forth very easily in a way we no longer remember how… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
How do you write for children? I really have never figured that out. So I decided to just ignore it — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
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… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
To get a child's trust - you may know or not - is a very hard thing to do. They're so used… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
All I liked to do when I was a kid was draw. My childhood was like my adult life: drawing pictures with… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
I believe there is no part of our lives, our adult as well as child life, when we're not fantasizing, but we… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
In plain terms, a child is a complicated creature who can drive you crazy. There's a cruelty to childhood, there's an anger. — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
As a child, I felt that books were holy objects, to be caressed, rapturously sniffed, and devotedly provided for. I gave my… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
If I have an unusual gift, it's not that I draw particularly better than other people - I've never fooled myself about… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
I do not remember any proper children's books in my childhood. I was not exposed to them. — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
Children surviving childhood is my obsessive theme and my life's concern, — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
Most children - I know I did when I was a kid - fantasize another set of parents. Or fantasize no parents.… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
. . .from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
I mean, being a child was being a child, was being a creature without power, without pocket money, without escape routes of… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
Mothers and children are human beings, and they will sometimes do the wrong thing. — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
I never thought of Bumble-Ardy in that way. But I still have that same deep feeling for children who are in dire trouble. I… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
I was a very sickly child. My parents were immigrants. They were not decorous. They were not discreet. They always thought I was gonna… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
The fan mail I get from kids are asking me questions which they do not ask their mothers and fathers. Because if they had,… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
“May I ask what you have in your black leather bag with gold buckles?" "Everything." They were climbing a narrow staircase. Rhoda stopped to… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
Illustrations have as much to say as the text. The trick is to say the same thing, but in a different way. It's no… — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
I've convinced myself - I hope I'm right - that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth. — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
