Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Maurice Sendak, fully Maurice Bernard Sendak

American Writer and Illustrator of Children's Literature best known for Where the Wild Things are

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

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

"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."

"A book is a book is a book."

"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"

"A woman came up to me the other day and said, 'You're the kiddie-book man!' I wanted to kill her."

"A woman came up to me the other day and said, ?You?re the kiddie-book man!? Mr. Sendak told Vanity Fair last year. I wanted to kill her."

"A happy death. It can be done. If you're William Blake and totally crazy."

"A book is really like a lover. It arranges itself in your life in a way that is beautiful. Even as a kid, my sister, who was the eldest, brought books home for me, and I think I spent more time sniffing and touching them than reading. I just remember the joy of the book, the beauty of the binding. The smelling of the interior. Happy."

"An illustrator in my own mind ? and this is not a truth of any kind ? is someone who so falls in love with writing that he wishes he had written it, and the closest he can get to is illustrating it. And the next thing you learn, you have to find something unique in this book, which perhaps even the author was not entirely aware of. And that?s what you hold on to, and that?s what you add to the pictures: a whole Other Story that you believe in, that you think is there."

"All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew."

"An illustration is an enlargement, and interpretation of the text, so that the reader will comprehend the words better. As an artist, you are always serving the words. You must never illustrate exactly what is written. You must find a space in the text so that the pictures can do the work. Then you must let the words take over where words do it best. It?s a funny kind of juggling act."

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

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

"And the walls became the world all around."

"And then, Max said, 'Let the wild rumpus start!'"

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

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

"And when he came to the place where the wild things are, they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws till Max said, "Be still" and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once. And they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all and made him king of all wild things."

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

"Artistic style is only a means to an end, and the more styles you have, the better. To get trapped in a style is to lose all flexibility. If you have only one style, then you?re going to do the same book over and over, which is pretty dull. Lots of styles permit you to walk in and out of books. So, develop a fine style, a fat style, and fairly slim style, and a really rough style. As an aspiring artist, you should strive for originality of vision. Have something to say and a fresh way of saying it. No story is worth the writing, no picture worth the making, if it?s not the work of the imagination."

"Can you draw a picture on the blackboard when somebody doesn't want you to? asked the rooster promptly. Yes, answered Kenny, if you write them a very nice poem. What is an only goat? A lonely goat, answered Kenny. The rooster shut one eye and looked at Kenny. can you hear a horse on the roof? he asked. If you know how to listen in the night, said Kenny. Can you fix a broken promise? Yes, said Kenny, if it only looks broken, but really isn't. The rooster drew his head back into his feathers and whispered, What is a very narrow escape? When somebody almost stops loving you, Kenny whispered back."

"Art has always been my salvation. And my gods are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Mozart. I believe in them with all my heart. And when Mozart is playing in my room, I am in conjunction with something I can't explain ? I don't need to. I know that if there's a purpose for life, it was for me to hear Mozart. Or if I walk in the woods and I see an animal, the purpose of my life was to see that animal. I can recollect it, I can notice it. I'm here to take note of. And that is beyond my ego, beyond anything that belongs to me, an observer, an observer."

"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."

"Certainly we want to protect our children from new and painful experiences that are beyond their emotional comprehension and that intensify anxiety; and to a point we can prevent premature exposure to such experiences. That is obvious. But what is just as obvious ? and what is too often overlooked ? is the fact that 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."

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

"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."

"Children do live in fantasy and reality; they move back and forth very easily in a way we no longer remember how to do."

"Childhood is cannibals and psychotics vomiting in your mouth!"

"Children who fight back, children who are full of excitement are the kind of children I like."

"Designing an opera by Mozart is like doing something for God ? it's a labor of love."

"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."

"Emeralds,' said the rabbit. 'Emeralds make a lovely gift."

"Each month is gay, each season nice, when eating chicken soup with rice."

"Essentially, there is no protecting children."

"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."

"Finding out that I was gay when I was older was a shock and a disappointment."

"Grown-ups are afraid for children. It's not children who are afraid."

"Girls are infinitely more complicated than boys and women more than men. And there's no doubt about that. We just don't like to think about it. Certainly the men don't like to think about it."

"'Hansel and Gretel' is one of the scariest stories ever written! Psychotic mother; stupid, inane father."

"Fuck them is what I say. I hate those e-books. They cannot be the future. They may well be. I will be dead. I won?t give a shit."

"He died a happy death. It can be done. If you're William Blake and totally crazy."

"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."

"Herman Melville is a god? I cherish what he did. He was a genius. Wrote Moby-Dick. Wrote Pierre. Wrote The Confidence-Man, wrote Billy Budd? Oh, yes. Look at him? Scares the bejesus out of people and makes them hate him. Because he's so good. Claggart has him killed in that book. Claggart has his eye on that boy. He will not tolerant such goodness, such blondeness, such blue eye. Goodness is scary. It's like you want to knock it. You want to hit it. Are we a country of beating down things? We love seeing people go down."

"Hitler made a film about "Hitler gives a camp to the Jews". And they look all shiny. And they're drawing. And they're playing volleyball. And people are dancing. And people are having a wonderful time. And everybody fell for it."

"Herman Melville said that artists have to take a dive and either you hit your head on a rock and you split your skull and you die? or that blow to the head is so inspiring that you come back and do the best work that you ever did. BUT you have to take the dive and you do not know what the results will be."

"I am not a religious person, nor do I have any regrets."

"I adored Mickey Mouse when I was a child. He was the emblem of happiness and funniness."

"I became a set designer for opera."

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