Quote

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.

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
Person
Kill
Monet
Book
Role
Gogh
Never
Accept
Vincent
Like
Accepting
Lilies
Roles
Vans
Water
Idiot
Beautiful
Recognition
Persons
Paint
Kiddie

More quotes by Maurice Sendak

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As a child, I felt that books were holy objects, to be caressed, rapturously sniffed, and devotedly provided for. I gave my life to them. I still do. I continue to do what I did as a child dream of books, make books and collect books.
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Children do live in fantasy and reality they move back and forth very easily in a way we no longer remember how to do.
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I believe there is no part of our lives, our adult as well as child life, when we're not fantasizing, but we prefer to relegate fantasy to children, as though it were some tomfoolery only fit for the immature minds of the young. Children do live in fantasy and reality they move back and forth very easily in a way we no longer remember how to do.
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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.
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It was inconceivable to me as a child that I would be an adult. I mean, one assumed that it 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. So I couldn't have thought about it much.
Maurice Sendak
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I mean, being a child was being a child, was being a creature without power, without pocket money, without escape routes of any kind. So I didn't want to be a child.
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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We've educated children to think spontaneity is inappropriate.
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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I wanted my wild things to be frightening.
Maurice Sendak
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You can't get rid of evil. We can't, and I feel that so intensely.
Maurice Sendak
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Kids never get pissed at their parents. Unheard of.
Maurice Sendak
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Because love is so enormous, the only thing you can think of doing is swallowing the person that you love entirely.
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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I do not remember any proper children's books in my childhood. I was not exposed to them.
Maurice Sendak
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Why is my needle stuck in childhood? I don't know why. I guess it's because that's where my heart is.
Maurice Sendak
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Newt Gingrich is an idiot of great renown... There's something so hopelessly gross and vile about him it's hard to take him seriously.
Maurice Sendak
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It is such an abundance of idiocy that you lose courage. That you lose hope. I don't want to lose hope. I get through every day. I'm pretty good. I work. I sleep. I sing. I walk.
Maurice Sendak
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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.
Maurice Sendak
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I'm totally crazy, I know that.
Maurice Sendak