Maurice Sendak Quotes

I was badly bullied when I was in the seventh grade - relentlessly, mercilessly - by a group of 12-year-old girls. And it left me with a determination that no matter what, I had to throw my shoulders back, stick out my chin, and project a sense that no one and nothing could hurt me. That turned out to be a life-changing mistake.

A lot of children grow up in poverty with flawed parents, but their inner world is still as inherently filled with wonder and innocence as children who are kept away from the city's underbelly.

My dad said, 'The thing that I was told that was really helpful was that I mustn't be afraid of the things I was afraid of when I was five years old'. The shock of his childhood had put him in this defensive crouch against the world, and he needed to know that he had a nice wife and kids and it wasn't the same any more.

I think you can be depressed and flourish, I think you can have cancer and flourish, I think you can be divorced and flourish. When we believed that happiness was only smiling and good mood, that wasn't very good for people like me, people in the lower half of positive affectivity.

The kids who were brought up on minefields should be able to catch up with the kids who were brought up on soccer fields.

When you lose a parent at ten years old, the world seems like a much scarier place. It makes complete sense to me that I took survival courses when I was a teenager and started going to war zones as a reporter. I didn't ever want to be taken advantage of, and I wanted to be able to take care of those around me.

When you're a kid, you're just not equipped to deal with some of the stuff that life brings you. It's why you have parents. And then, when you don't, there better be somebody who fills in that gap, or you're going to be rudderless for a while.

When I was growing up as a kid, it was always, 'Oh, you're being bullied. Well, toughen up. Get some tough skin and deal with it.' That's how we were told to deal with it, and it's not that simple.

I have money in my bank account. I have my own apartment. I have friends. I still go through and experience depression. You don't have to be ashamed of it.

I was bullied in school, but thankfully, I was surrounded by amazing family that love me and kept my head high and didn't allow me to fall into depression because of it.

Not everything made you stronger. It was possible to survive, yet still be crippled for your trouble. Sometimes it was okay to run away, to skip the test, to chicken out. Or at least to get some help.

I consider myself a survivor more than anything else.

I think there is pressure on people to turn every negative into a positive, but we should be allowed to say, 'I went through something really strange and awful and it has altered me forever.'

I was in a very deep, dark slump, and I needed to find a way to get myself out of it. I had to force myself back out into life, back out into experiencing things.

I've never stabbed, hurt, killed, stolen, anything, but I went to jail for a year. What is that? My pastor said to me the fact that I'm not living under a bridge as a crazy woman, talking to myself, is amazing.

I have been dealing with illness and its manifestations since I was a teenager, and I think that gives me a very healthy respect for the things in life we can't control.

You need to be able to manage stress because hard times will come, and a positive outlook is what gets you through.

I can't understand people who give up and commit suicide. If I have a bad day, I figure tomorrow will be better. And even if it isn't, at least it isn't any worse.

I've had a tremendous problem with depression in my life. I'd rather not talk about it, because it's over. But depression is real.

I was definitely an at-risk kid growing up.

I've had to find my sanity.

I've overcome neglect and deprivation, abandonment and abuse.

Only a fool expects to be happy all the time.

Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats.

I'm Russian Jewish. And I had to grow up really quickly.