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
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
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. – Maurice Sendak
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
My father could be very witty, even if the humor was always on the darker side of irony. – Maurice Sendak
I’ve convinced myself – I hope I’m right – that children despair of you if you don’t tell them the truth. – Maurice Sendak
I do not remember any proper children’s books in my childhood. I was not exposed to them. – Maurice Sendak
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
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