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I want to be free again. I want to be free like when I was a kid, working with my brother and making toy airplanes and a whole model of the World's Fair in 1939 out of wax.

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
World
Models
Brother
Working
Airplanes
Free
Toys
Making
Airplane
Kids
Model
Whole
Fairs
Like
Fair

More quotes by Maurice Sendak

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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.
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.
Maurice Sendak
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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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Emeralds,' said the rabbit. 'Emeralds make a lovely gift.
Maurice Sendak
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Inside all of us is... hope. Inside all of us is... fear. Inside all of us is... adventure. Inside all of us is a wild thing.
Maurice Sendak
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All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew.
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! It's an art form. I talk a lot. And I think a lot. And I draw a lot. But never in a million years would I have been a parent. That's just work that's too hard.
Maurice Sendak
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There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.
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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One of the beauties of being an artist is that you can create a whole new world, with circumstances that are better in your invented world than they are in the real world.
Maurice Sendak
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Life has only gotten better personally for me as I've gotten older. I mean, being young was such a gross waste of time. I was just such a miserable, miserable person.
Maurice Sendak
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To be a healthy person, you have to be sympathetic to the child you once were and maintain the continuity between you as a child and you as an adult.
Maurice Sendak
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I stress character, character, character.
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 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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I never set out to write books for children. I don't have a feeling that I'm gonna save children or my life is devoted.
Maurice Sendak
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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
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We all want to be renewed, don't we?
Maurice Sendak
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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
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My life in Brooklyn was in constant danger because of my bad health.
Maurice Sendak