I Refuse To Cater To

Illustrations Have As Much To Say As The Text. The Trick Is To Say The Same Thing, But In A Different Way. It's No Good Being An Illustrator Who Is Saying A Lot That Is On His Or Her Mind, If It Has Nothing To Do With The Text. . . The Artist Must Override The Story, But He Must Also Override His Own Ego For The Sake Of The Story.

All I Liked To Do When I Was A Kid Was Draw. My Childhood Was Like My Adult Life: Drawing Pictures With My Brother, Putting The Comics Up On The Glass Window, And Tracing The Characters Onto Tracing Paper Or Drawing Paper And Then Coloring Them. That And Making Things Was All We Ever Did.

Art Has Always Been My Salvation. And My Gods Are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Mozart. I Believe In Them With All My Heart. And When Mozart Is Playing In My Room, I Am In Conjunction With Something I Can’t Explain — I Don’t Need To. I Know That If There’s A Purpose For Life, It Was For Me To Hear Mozart. Or If I Walk In The Woods And I See An Animal, The Purpose Of My Life Was To See That Animal. I Can Recollect It, I Can Notice It. I’m Here To Take Note Of. And That Is Beyond My Ego, Beyond Anything That Belongs To Me, An Observer, An Observer.

Sendak Is In Search Of What He Calls A "yummy Death". William Blake Set The Standard, Jumping Up From His Death Bed At The Last Minute To Start Singing. "a Happy Death," Says Sendak. "it Can Be Done." He Lifts His Eyebrows To Two Peaks. "if You're William Blake And Totally Crazy.

Then From Far Away Across The World He Smelled Good Things To Eat, So He Gave Up Being King Of The Wild Things.