Great Throughts Treasury

"I would infinitely prefer a daughter. If I had a son, I would leave him at the A&P or some other big advertising place where somebody who needs a kid would find him and he would be all right. ? A daughter would be drawn to me. A daughter would want to help me. 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. I have lived my whole life with a dream daughter."

"I write books that seem more suitable for children, and that's OK with me. They are a better audience and tougher critics. Kids tell you what they think, not what they think they should think."

"I?m writing a poem right now about a nose. I?ve always wanted to write a poem about a nose. But it?s a ludicrous subject. That?s why, when I was younger, I was afraid of [writing] something that didn?t make a lot of sense. But now I?m not. I have nothing to worry about. It doesn?t matter."

"If children are different from us, they are more spontaneous. Grown-up lives have become overlaid with dross."

"I'd like to believe an accumulation of experience has made me a sort of a grown-up person, so I can have judgment and taste and whatever."

"I?m gay. I just didn?t think it was anybody?s business ? All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew."

"If life is so critical, if Anne Frank could die, if my friend could die, children were as vulnerable as adults, and that gave me a secret purpose to my work, to make them live. Because I wanted to live. I wanted to grow up."

"If there's anything I'm proud of in my work--it's not that I draw better; there's so many better graphic artists than me--or that I write better, no. It's--and I'm not saying I know the truth, because what the hell is that? But what I got from Ruth and Dave, a kind of fierce honesty, to not let the kid down, to not let the kid get punished, to not suffer the child to be dealt with in a boring, simpering, crushing-of-the-spirit kind of way."

"I'm not obsessed with angels but I do adore angels."

"I'm scared of watching a TV show about vampires. I can't fall asleep."

"If I have an unusual gift, it?s not that I draw particularly better than other people ? I?ve never fooled myself about that. Rather it?s that I remember things other people don?t recall: the sounds and feelings and images ? the emotional quality ? of particular moments in childhood. Happily an essential part of myself ? my dreaming life ? still lives in the light of childhood."

"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 good being an illustrator who is saying a lot that is on his or her mind, if it has nothing to do with the text? the artist must override the story, but he must also override his own ego for the sake of the story."

"I'm a lucky buck."

"I'll eat you up. I love you so."

"I'm not a religious person."

"I'm not afraid of death."

"I'm an illustrator. I have to accept my role. I will never kill myself like Vincent van Gogh. Nor will I paint beautiful water lilies like Monet. I can't do that. I'm in the idiot role of being a kiddie-book person. It sounds like I'm complaining, but it has no effect on me. I have a good life."

"I'm not Hans Christian Andersen. Nobody's gonna make a statue in the park with a lot of scrambling kids climbing up me. I won't have it, okay?"

"I'm totally crazy, I know that. I don't say that to be a smartass, but I know that that's the very essence of what makes my work good. And I know my work is good. Not everybody likes it, that's fine. I don't do it for everybody. Or anybody. I do it because I can't not do it."

"I'm sick of 'Wild Things.'"

"It is a blessing to get old. It is a blessing to find the time to do the things, to read the books, to listen to the music? I have nothing now but praise for my life."

"I'm writing a poem right now about a nose. I've always wanted to write a poem about a nose. But it's a ludicrous subject. That's why, when I was younger, I was afraid of something that didn't make a lot of sense. But now I'm not. I have nothing to worry about. It doesn't matter."

"In plain terms, a child is a complicated creature who can drive you crazy. There's a cruelty to childhood, there's an anger."

"I'm still as enamored and turned on by work as I was when I was young."

"It was inconceivable to me as a child that I would be an adult. I mean, one assumed that would happen, but obviously it didn?t happen, or if it did, it happened when your back was turned, and then suddenly you were there."

"It's no fun being lonely."

"It dawned on me that art was the way I could survive."

"It's a terrifying book; it's a nightmare. That to me comes as close to the world of childhood as great books do. Carroll was allowing for nightmare, murderous impulses. I don't know why he got away from it. He told the truth about childhood, about how unsafe it was."

"It's spontaneous combustion. I don't know what's going to work until I start to draw. It is so out of your hands it is amazing."

"It's only adults who read the top layers most of the time. I think children read the internal meanings of everything."

"I've always loved pigs: the shape of them, the look of them, and the fact that they are so intelligent."

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

"Let the wild rumpus start!"

"Kids don?t know about best sellers. They go for what they enjoy. They aren?t star chasers and they don?t suck up. It?s why I like them."

"Live your Life. Live your Life. Live your Life."

"Kids are so shrewd."

"Kids lead a very private life."

"Max was a little beast, and we're all little beasts. That was what was so novel."

"Look, life is pretty dreadful most of the time. Even in the country that's so pretty with the flowers and leaves and sunshine. And I was abandoned when [his partner Eugene] died! I'm alone. I feel like an old bubba. And I'm not kind all of the time, I'm not nice all the time."

"Maybe there are lots of children or certainly those who are not drawn to my work because they don't want to see those shadows. But, I'm telling what it was like for me. And I know it was not unique for me. I've known many children, many unhappy and many disturbed children who don't know how to talk about it. And you know, the strangest thing... the fan mail I get from kids are asking me questions which they do not ask their mothers and fathers. Because if they had, why write to me, a perfect stranger?"

"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."

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

"My being gay was something of not great interest to me."

"My father belonged to a Jewish social club."

"My big concern is me and what do I do now until the time of my death. That is valid. That is useful. That is beautiful. That is creative. And also, I want to be free again. I want to be free like when I was a kid ? Where we just had fun. What I mean by this is I've had my career. I've had my success. God willing, it should have happened to Herman Melville who deserved it a great deal more, you know? Imagine him being on Bill Moyers' show. Nothing good happened to Herman Melville. I want to see me to the end working, living for myself. "Ripeness is all." Now, interpreting what ripeness is our own individual problem. ? So, what is the point of it all? Not leaving legacies. But being ripe. Being ripe."

"My parents were ignorant peasants from the Old World."

"My parents were very indiscrete."

"My life in Brooklyn was in constant danger because of my bad health."

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

"My therapies went on forever."