Top 104 Quotes by Maurice Sendak

I grew up in a house that was in a constant state of mourning.

My work is not great, but it's respectable.

I have this idiot name tag which says 'controversial.'

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?

I've always loved pigs: the shape of them, the look of them, and the fact that they are so intelligent.

I mean, being a child was being a child, was being a creature without power, without pocket money, without escape routes of any kind. So I didn't want to be a child.

All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew.

My work is not great, but it's respectable. I have no false illusions.

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.

There's something in this country that is so opposed to understanding the complexity of children.