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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.

Maurice Sendak

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Maurice Sendak
Age: 83 †
Born: 1928
Born: June 10
Died: 2012
Died: May 8
Artist
Cartoonist
Graphic Designer
Illustrator
Painter
Screenwriter
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Maurice Bernard Sendak
Thinking
Tell
Kids
Tougher
Seems
Suitable
Better
Critics
Book
Seem
Children
Books
Writing
Audience
Think
Write

More quotes by Maurice Sendak

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I don't know how to write a children's book.
Maurice Sendak
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When you hide another story in a story, that’s the story I am telling the children.
Maurice Sendak
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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?
Maurice Sendak
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I did not know how to paint a mural. I did not know how to prepare the surface. There was nobody from the Renaissance around who could advise me, and I did the best I could.
Maurice Sendak
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And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.
Maurice Sendak
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I don't believe in an afterlife but I still fully expect to see my brother again.
Maurice Sendak
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You can start making up any kind of story if you want to.
Maurice Sendak
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And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.
Maurice Sendak
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Kids never get pissed at their parents. Unheard of.
Maurice Sendak
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I became a set designer for opera. I'm a great opera buff, I love classical music, and I needed a time-out.
Maurice Sendak
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I often went to bed without supper cause I hated my mother's cooking. So, to go to bed without supper was not a torture to me. If she was gonna hurt me, she'd make me eat.
Maurice Sendak
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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.
Maurice Sendak
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The day after Paul Newman was dead, he was twice as dead.
Maurice Sendak
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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.
Maurice Sendak
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there is no such thing as fantasy unrelated to reality
Maurice Sendak
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I think there is something barbaric in children, and it's missing in lots of books for them because we don't like to think of it. We want them to be happy [but] childhood is a very tough time.
Maurice Sendak
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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.
Maurice Sendak
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I'm totally crazy, I know that.
Maurice Sendak
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I know there are supposedly happy people in this world. I never believed it, but I take it for granted. God knows, they're all on television.
Maurice Sendak
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I think people should be given a test much like driver's tests as to whether they're capable of being parents!
Maurice Sendak