Quote

I'm not jaded. I never have been jaded. I've always been surprised at my success. I've always enjoyed it.

Maurice Sendak

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Always
Never
Jaded
Surprised
Enjoyed
Success

More quotes by Maurice Sendak

Image
You know who my gods are, who I believe in fervently? Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson - she's probably the top - Mozart, Shakespeare, Keats. These are wonderful gods who have gotten me through the narrow straits of life.
Maurice Sendak
Image
I think people should be given a test much like driver's tests as to whether they're capable of being parents!
Maurice Sendak
Image
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.
Maurice Sendak
Image
A whole new world of Italian music was springing up, and [Giuseppe] Verdi was seen as old. Boito got Verdi all excited about the possibility of doing another opera, another kind of opera. In fact, Verdi composed his two best operas, Otello and Falstaff, in his eighties.
Maurice Sendak
Image
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?
Maurice Sendak
Image
I have a little tiny Emily Dickinson so big that I carry in my pocket everywhere. And you just read three poems of Emily. She is so brave. She is so strong. She is such a sexy, passionate, little woman. I feel better.
Maurice Sendak
Image
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
Image
How do you write for children? I really have never figured that out. So I decided to just ignore it
Maurice Sendak
Image
I became a set designer for opera.
Maurice Sendak
Image
The day after Paul Newman was dead, he was twice as dead.
Maurice Sendak
Image
I know that if there’s a purpose for life, it was for me to hear Mozart.
Maurice Sendak
Image
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.
Maurice Sendak
Image
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
Image
I wanted my wild things to be frightening.
Maurice Sendak
Image
One of the few graces of getting old - and God knows there are few graces - is that if you've worked hard and kept your nose to the grindstone, something happens: The body gets old but the creative mechanism is refreshed, smoothed and oiled and honed. That is the grace. That is what's happening to me.
Maurice Sendak
Image
I never can satisfy some need in me to achieve something of incredible hight. For my sake. It puzzles me deeply. And it sours my life. So there is a permanent dissatisfaction.
Maurice Sendak
Image
I'm getting old. And I'm disappointed in everything just the way old people traditionally, boringly are. That bothers me because is it too traditional? Am I not fighting hard enough? I don't feel the fight. I don't feel it.
Maurice Sendak
Image
We're animals. We're violent. We're criminal. We're not so far away from the gorillas and the apes, those beautiful creatures.
Maurice Sendak
Image
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
Image
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