Info Anatomy

Goodnight Mr Sendak

"Please dont go. Well eat you up. We love you so."
from Where the Wild Things Are

Its hard to add anything new to the tributes to Maurice Sendak that have been flowing in since his death on Tuesday, so Ill just let the great one speak for himself. Here are some quotes that especially resonate with me.

"You cannot write for children. Theyre much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them."

"I believe theres no part of our lives, our adult as well as child life, when were 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."

"A woman came up to me the other day and said, Youre the kiddie-book man. I wanted to kill her."

"Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my childrens 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 Ive ever received. He didnt care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it."

"There must be more to life than having everything."

"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."

"Im not Hans Christian Andersen. Nobodys gonna make a statue in the park with a lot of scrambling kids climbing up me. I wont have it, okay?"

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