318 Quotes by Maurice Sendak

"Childhood is a tricky business. Usually, something goes wrong."

"If there's any advice I have to give, I would say it's that. If you're looking for a way to get closer to your kids, there ain't no better way than to grab 'em and read. And if you put them in front of a computer or a TV, you are abandoning them. You are abandoning them because they are sitting on a couch or a floor and they may be hugging a dog, but they ain't hugging you."

"There must be more to life than having everything."

"There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready."

"Mothers and children are human beings, and they will sometimes do the wrong thing."

"I had lost my sister recently, too, which meant that my whole family was gone. I was the baby of the family. There were five Sendaks and there were five Wild Things, and now there's only one Sendak, and he's about to bite the dust, too! Life, as I said before, was very difficult at that time and so it was natural that there would be a change in the look of things. Also, I was very impressed with my own strength in doing this under the circumstances in which I was living."

"There are certain pieces of music that are always attached to certain books."

"My brother, who was older, was the gifted one, much more talented than I."

"I want to be alone and work until the day my heads hits the drawing table and I'm dead. Kaput. I feel very much like I want to be with my brother and sister again. They're nowhere. I know they're nowhere and they don't exist, but if nowhere means that's where they are, that's where I want to be."

"Truthfullness to life-both fantasy life and factual life-is the basis of all great art."