318 Quotes by Maurice Sendak

I became a set designer for opera. I'm a great opera buff, I love classical music, and I needed a time-out.

You don't want to do something that's all terrifying.

It's no fun being lonely.

How do you write for children? I really have never figured that out. So I decided to just ignore it

For my father the one calamity was that my brother and sister and I never learned to swim. My father, who was very macho, was a strong swimmer and was terribly disappointed to have children who didn't swim. Once when my mother was sitting in a beach chair - I can still see the big umbrella - she called to my father, "Throw them in! Throw them in! They'll swim!" So he did. Then he looked down, and there were the three Sendak children lying perfectly still underwater, not fighting for life!

Art has always been my salvation.

What is the point of it all? Not leaving legacies. But being ripe. Being ripe.

That always seemed to be the most critical test that a child was confronted with - loss of parents, loss of direction, loss of love. Can you live without a mother and a father?

As a kid, all I thought about was death. But you can't tell your parents that.