I know it’s been months since Sendak died, but I just got to listening to this podcast, which in the beginning, when I was walking the dog, made me burst out laughing, but when I got home and sat in my office and listened to the last bit, made me cry.
On signing books for children:
When I’m autographing books, which I don’t like to do much anymore, and children are shoved at me… they have no idea why they’re on the line. They’d much rather be in the bathroom.
…the look of alarm and the tears, and they stare at me like pure hatred. Who is this elderly short man sitting behind a desk who’s going to take their book away? Then on top of that, the parent says, now give him your book, honey. He wants to write something in it. Well, there, they’ve been told: don’t write in a book. Okay. Why then is it all right for a perfect stranger to write in their book? It’s horrible for them. And I become horrible unwittingly. I make children cry.
…There’s only one child who ever had the courage, and his father was urging him forward, urging him forward. I can see the hesitation. I just felt so bad for the kid, and I put my hand on the book to help draw it away from him. And he literally screamed and said: “Don’t crap up my book!”
On faith:
“I am not a religious person, nor do I have any regrets. The war took care of that for me. You know, I was brought up strictly kosher, but I — it made no sense to me. It made no sense to me what was happening. So nothing of it means anything to me. Nothing. Except these few little trivial things that are related to being Jewish. … You know who my gods are, who I believe in fervently? Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson — she’s probably the top — Mozart, Shakespeare, Keats. These are wonderful gods who have gotten me through the narrow straits of life.”
Filed under: Maurice Sendak
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