Maurice Sendak Quotes About Children

Quotes about: Children

• Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.

  Maurice Sendak

  Mother, Children, Boys

  "Maurice Sendak and childhood — we ate it up, we loved it". www.washingtonpost.com. May 8, 2012.

• And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Mean, Catharsis

  Maurice Sendak's acceptance speech upon being awarded the Caldecott Medal for "Where the Wild Things Are" (1964), as quoted in "Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books: 1956-65" edited by Lee Kingman, 1965.

• 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

  Children, Moving, Reality

  "Questions to an Artist Who Is Also an Author: A Conversation between Maurice Sendak and Virginia Haviland". Book by Virginia Haviland, 1970.

• 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

  Children, Book, Writing

  "Maurice Sendak Dead: 'Where The Wild Things Are' Author Dies At 83" by the Associated Press, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 8, 2012.

• You cannot write for children They're much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them.

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Book, Writing

  Boston Globe interview, January 4, 1987.

• We’ve educated children to think that spontaneity is inappropriate. Children are willing to expose themselves to experiences. We aren’t. Grownups always say they protect their children, but they’re really protecting themselves. Besides, you can’t protect children. They know everything.

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Thinking, Spontaneity

  "The Paternal Pride of Maurice Sendak" by Bernard Holland, www.nytimes.com. November 8, 1987.

• Children are tough, though we tend to think of them as fragile. They have to be tough. Childhood is not easy. We sentimentalize children, but they know what's real and what's not. They understand metaphor and symbol. If children are different from us, they are more spontaneous. Grown-up lives have become overlaid with dross.

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Real, Thinking

  "The Paternal Pride of Maurice Sendak" by Bernard Holland, www.nytimes.com. November 8, 1987.

• Children are the best living audience in the world because they are so thoroughly honest.

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, World, Honest

• 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

  Children, Believe, Moving

  "Questions to an Artist Who Is Also an Author: A Conversation between Maurice Sendak and Virginia Haviland". Book by Virginia Haviland, 1970.

• Children surviving childhood is my obsessive theme and my life's concern.

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Childhood, Theme

• 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

  Children, Mean, Frustration

  Maurice Sendak's acceptance speech upon being awarded the Caldecott Medal for "Where the Wild Things Are" (1964), as quoted in "Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books: 1956-65" edited by Lee Kingman, 1965.

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

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Thinking, Adults

• I don't write for children. I write, and somebody says, 'That's for children.'

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Writing

  Interview with Stephen Colbert, www.colbertnewshub.com. January 25, 2012.

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

  Maurice Sendak

  Mother, Children, Sometimes

  "Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait Of Maurice Sendak" by Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait Of Maurice Sendak" by Noel Murray, tv.avclub.com. October 19, 2009.

• 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

  Dream, Children, Book

• I said anything I wanted because I don't believe in children I don't believe in childhood. I don't believe that there's a demarcation. 'Oh you mustn't tell them that. You mustn't tell them that.' You tell them anything you want. Just tell them if it's true. If it's true you tell them.

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Believe, Childhood

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

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Crazy, Anger

  "'Wild Things' author isn't wild about Hollywood" by Jake Coyle, www.today.com. October 13, 2009.

• 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

  Children, Healthy, Adults

• 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

  Mother, Children, Father

  "Bonus Material From Our Exclusive 'Where The Wild Things Are' Roundtable". Interview With Andrew Romano, www.newsweek.com. October 9, 2009.

• Certainly we want to protect our children from new and painful experiences that are beyond their emotional comprehension and that intensify anxiety; and to a point we can prevent premature exposure to such experiences.

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Emotional, Painful Experiences

  Maurice Sendak's acceptance speech upon being awarded the Caldecott Medal for "Where the Wild Things Are" (1964), as quoted in "Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books: 1956-65" edited by Lee Kingman, 1965.

• To get a child's trust - you may know or not - is a very hard thing to do. They're so used to not believing adults - because adults tell tales and lies all the time.

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Lying, Believe

• 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.

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Growing Up, Secret

  "Maurice Sendak's dark visions delighted generations of children" by Esther Addley, www.theguardian.com. May 8, 2012.

• I do not remember any proper children's books in my childhood. I was not exposed to them.

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Book, Childhood

• When you hide another story in a story, that’s the story I am telling the children.

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Stories

  "Sendak on Sendak". Interview at Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia, 2007/2008.

• 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

  Children, Book, Writing

  Source: www.pbs.org

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