Maurice Sendak Quotes About Books

Quotes about: Books

• A book is really like a lover. It arranges itself in your life in a way that is beautiful.

  Maurice Sendak

  Inspirational, Funny, Beauty

  "Outside Over There". Interview With Emma Brockes, harpers.org. March 2013.

• 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.

• There's so much more to a book than just the reading.

  Maurice Sendak

  Book, Reading

• I hate [ebooks]. It's like making believe there's another kind of sex. There isn't another kind of sex. There isn't another kind of book! A book is a book is a book.

  Maurice Sendak

  Sex, Hate, Believe

• 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 hate those e-books. They can not be the future... they may well be... I will be dead.

  Maurice Sendak

  Hate, Book, May

• An illustrator in my own mind - and this is not a truth of any kind - is someone who so falls in love with writing that he wishes he had written it, and the closest he can get to is illustrating it. And the next thing you learn, you have to find something unique in this book, which perhaps even the author was not entirely aware of. And that's what you hold on to, and that's what you add to the pictures: a whole Other Story that you believe in, that you think is there.

  Maurice Sendak

  Falling In Love, Believe, Book

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

• I never spent less than two years on the text of one of my picture books, even though each of them is approximately 380 words long. Only when the text is finished ... do I begin the pictures.

  Maurice Sendak

  Book, Writing, Years

  Maurice Sendak, William Knowlton Zinsser (1998). “Worlds of Childhood: The Art and Craft of Writing for Children”, p.28, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• I was sickly as a child and gravitated to books and drawing. During my early teen years, I spent hundreds of hours at my window, sketching neighborhood children at play. I sketched and listened, and those notebooks became the fertile field of my work later on. There is not a book I have written or a picture I have drawn that does not, in some way, owe them its existence.

  Maurice Sendak

  Notebook, Children, Years

• It is a blessing to get old. It is a blessing to find the time to do the things, to read the books, to listen to the music. I have nothing now but praise for my life.

  Maurice Sendak

  Book, Blessing, Praise

  "'Fresh Air' Remembers Author Maurice Sendak". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, kut.org. June 10, 2015.

• 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

  Children, Book, Thinking

  Source: blankonblank.org

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

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Book, Childhood

• A book is really like a lover. It arranges itself in your life in a way that is beautiful. Even as a kid, my sister, who was the eldest, brought books home for me, and I think I spent more time sniffing and touching them than reading. I just remember the joy of the book, the beauty of the binding. The smelling of the interior. Happy.

  Maurice Sendak

  Beautiful, Book, Reading

  "Outside Over There". Interview With Emma Brockes, harpers.org. March 2013.

• 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

• I wanted to be acknowledged as an artist, not just some kiddie-book artist.

  Maurice Sendak

  Book, Artist, Wanted

• Kids books Grownup books That's just marketing. Books are books.

  Maurice Sendak

  Book, Kids, Marketing

• It was a very difficult time. I was working on [umble-Ardy] when my partner and friend was dying of cancer. We set up a room in the house to be like a hospital room. Eugene died, and then I had bypass surgery. I was doing the book to stay sane while all this was going on.

  Maurice Sendak

  Cancer, Book, House

  Source: www.hbook.com

• There are certain pieces of music that are always attached to certain books.

  Maurice Sendak

  Book, Pieces, Certain

• I don't know how to write a children's book.

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Book, Writing

• I had been reading a fabulous book [The Man Verdi, by Frank Walker] about [Giuseppe] Verdi, whom I adore.

  Maurice Sendak

  Reading, Book, Men

  Source: www.hbook.com

• Bumble-Ardy looks like a happy book. That's the funniest thing about it. But this was survival. I was working very hard to survive.

  Maurice Sendak

  Book, Working Very Hard, Survival

  Source: www.hbook.com

• I have to accept my role. I will never kill myself like Vincent Van Gogh. Nor will I paint beautiful water lilies like Monet. I can't do that. I'm in the idiot role of being a kiddie book person.

  Maurice Sendak

  Beautiful, Book, Water Lily

  The Believer interview, www.believermag.com. November/December 2012.

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