Maurice Sendak Quotes

I began attempting to write for children under the mistaken assumption that writing for children was easy.

If it's not good enough for adults, it's not good enough for children. If a book that is going to be marketed for children does not interest me, a grownup, then I am dishonoring the children for whom the book is intended, and I am dishonoring books. And words.

People had been writing to me and saying, "Can you write something for children?" I felt I couldn't quite do it myself because I never had children.

Every novelist should write something for children at least once in his lifetime.

A lot of school-going children are familiar with my writing. I am basically very much a children books author.

He is a writer for the ages, the ages of four to eight.

Children's fiction is the most important fiction of all.

I still retain a bit of a child's focus on things, so we [with my sister] figure if we're going to write books, our best shot is to write children's books, because we relate pretty readily on that level.

I have a passion for children's literature. Young adult literature. I love it. I've always loved it.

Children's publishing is the jewel in the crown of British publishing.

I am writing my second novel for children for Simon and Schuster.

Anything can become a children's book if you give it to a child...Children are actually the best (and worst) audience for literature because they have no patience with pretence.

What should a good children’s book be like? If you ask me, I can tell you after thinking long and hard: It must be good.

I love picture books. I think some of the best people in children's books are the ones who create their own picture books. I wish I could say I'm one of them, but I'm not.

My process is surprisingly straightforward. I find myself with little to do over a stretch of time and I say, "I should write children's books today." Then I sit down and write a children's book, and if it takes more than, realistically, three hours, I feel like I've done something wrong.

I think that books for young people should have serious and important themes, they shouldn't be trivial. So the books I write, they would be the kind of stories you would write in an adult novel only they just happen to feature a child at the center of them.

I'm wondering what to read next." Matilda said. "I've finished all the children's books.

This is the great thing about writing for kids. Adults might not do anything if they recognized me. But if they do see me, and they're with a kid, they'll tell the kid who I am. They think they should give that to the kid. So generally that sends the kid over.

Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about critics.

I'm not interested in writing for adults. I like them as people! I don't like the way they publish books in that world. Nothing ever gets a chance.

I'd written my first novel for adults, which was called Basic Eight and was set in a high school, and we were having a devil of a time selling it. It ended up in the hands of an editor of a children's publishing house, for which it was entirely inappropriate. She said, "Well, we can't publish this, but I think you should write something for children," which I thought was a really terrible idea.

I don't really read children's books or deal with children's books, so I don't have any relationship with them other than my own.

You have to write the book that wants to be written.

A children's book is the perfect place where young readers can understand the world because they can take a deep breath and look at it and imagine and contemplate while they're looking at.

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