I didn't have much confidence in myself... never.
— Maurice Sendak
We're animals. We're violent. We're criminal.
I want to write something so simple, so short and so silly... and I want it to be for my brother.
Parents shouldn't assume children are made out of sugar candy and will break and collapse instantly.
I'm scared of watching a TV show about vampires. I can't fall asleep.
I feel extremely vulnerable.
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.
Kids lead a very private life.
Parents shouldn't assume children are made out of sugar candy and will break and collapse instantly. Kids don't. We do.
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.
I only have one subject. The question I am obsessed with is: How do children survive?
'Hansel and Gretel' is one of the scariest stories ever written! Psychotic mother; stupid, inane father.
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.
I became a set designer for opera. I'm a great opera buff, I love classical music, and I needed a time-out.
As a kid, all I thought about was death. But you can't tell your parents that.
I'm writing a poem right now about a nose. I've always wanted to write a poem about a nose. But it's a ludicrous subject. That's why, when I was younger, I was afraid of something that didn't make a lot of sense. But now I'm not. I have nothing to worry about. It doesn't matter.
Do parents sit down and tell their kids everything? I don't know. I don't know. I've convinced myself - I hope I'm right - that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth.
I'm not Hans Christian Anderson. Nobody's gonna make a statue in the park with a lot of scrambling kids climbing up me. I won't have it, okay?
Kids are so shrewd.
Mothers and children are human beings, and they will sometimes do the wrong thing.
Grown-ups are afraid for children. It's not children who are afraid.
I adored Mickey Mouse when I was a child. He was the emblem of happiness and funniness.
All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy.
I don't write for children. I write and someone says it's for children.
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.
There's something in this country that is so opposed to understanding the complexity of children.
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.
I want to be alone and work until the day my heads hits the drawing table and I'm dead. Kaput. I feel very much like I want to be with my brother and sister again. They're nowhere. I know they're nowhere and they don't exist, but if nowhere means that's where they are, that's where I want to be.
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?
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.
My work is not great, but it's respectable. I have no false illusions.
People from New York have been calling, to see if I'm still alive. When I answer the phone, you can hear the disappointment in their voice.
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.
Kids don't know about best sellers. They go for what they enjoy. They aren't star chasers and they don't suck up. It's why I like them.
We're supposed to do all these things which trouble us deeply because it's so against what we naturally would want to do.
Childhood is a tricky business. Usually, something goes wrong.
I hate those e-books. They cannot be the future. They may well be.
You don't want to do something that's all terrifying.
I feel like I don't have a lot of time left.
I hate people.
I think people should be given a test much like driver's tests as to whether they're capable of being parents!
I became a set designer for opera.
I hate those e-books. They can not be the future... they may well be... I will be dead.
I grew up in a house that was in a constant state of mourning.
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.
Oh, I adored Mickey Mouse when I was a child. He was the emblem of happiness and funniness. You went to the movies then, you saw two movies and a short. When Mickey Mouse came on the screen and there was his big head, my sister said she had to hold onto me. I went berserk.
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.
You can't write masterpieces in your 80s and be happy too.
I'm sick of 'Wild Things.'
When I did 'Bumble-ardy,' I was so intensely aware of death. Eugene, my friend and partner, was dying here in the house when I did 'Bumble-ardy'. I did 'Bumble-ardy' to save myself. I did not want to die with him. I wanted to live, as any human being does.
