Maurice Sendak has not joined FLAPSS and has not endorsed it. This page is a reference record assembled from published interviews and public remarks. Every answer below is a direct quotation with the source and date shown next to it.
Children's author and illustrator
United States · 1928–2012
American illustrator and writer, author of Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen and Outside Over There. His partner of nearly fifty years, the psychoanalyst Eugene Glynn, died of cancer in 2007, and Sendak wrote and drew his last book, Bumble-ardy, while nursing him. He died of complications of a stroke in May 2012, eight months after the Fresh Air conversation quoted here.
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Look, life is pretty dreadful most of the time. Even in the country that's so pretty with the flowers and leaves and sunshine. And I was abandoned when he died! I'm alone. I feel like an old bubba. And I'm not kind all of the time, I'm not nice all the time.
Recorded Emma Brockes, The Observer, at his home in Connecticut — his last Guardian interview, The Guardian, 2 October 2011 source ↗
Yes. Of course. And since I don't believe in another world, in another life, that this is it. And when they die they are out of my life. They're gone forever. Blank. Blank. Blank. And I am not afraid of death. And I begin to - as maybe a good many elderly people do. Who knows? When I did "Bumble-ardy" I was so intensely aware of death. Eugene, my friend and my partner, was dying here in the house while I did "Bumble-ardy." And I did "Bumble-ardy" to save myself. I did not want to die with him. I wanted to live, as any human being does.
Recorded Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR — recorded by telephone in September 2011, his last interview, 20 September 2011 source ↗
Yes. I'm not unhappy about becoming old. I'm not unhappy about what must be. It makes me cry only when I see my friends go before me and life is emptied. I don't believe in an afterlife, but I still fully expect to see my brother again. ... But, you know, there's something I'm finding out as I'm aging that I am in love with the world. And I look right now, as we speak together, out my window in my studio and I see my trees and my beautiful, beautiful maples that are hundreds of years old, they're beautiful. And you see I can see how beautiful they are. I can take time to see how beautiful they are. It is a blessing to get old. It is a blessing to find the time to do the things, to read the books, to listen to the music.
Recorded Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR — recorded by telephone in September 2011, his last interview, 20 September 2011 source ↗
I cry a lot because I miss people. I cry a lot because they die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more. ... And so it's what I dread more than anything is the isolation.
Recorded Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR — recorded by telephone in September 2011, his last interview, 20 September 2011 source ↗
Oh God, there are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready. ... And I don't know whether I'll do another book or not. I might. It doesn't matter. I'm a happy old man. But I will cry my way all the way to the grave.
Recorded Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR — recorded by telephone in September 2011, his last interview, 20 September 2011 source ↗
You are the only person I have ever dealt with in terms of being interviewed or talking to who brings this out in me. There's something very unique and special in you, which I so trust. ... And almost certainly, I'll go before you go, so I won't have to miss you. ... I wish you all good things. Live your life, live your life, live your life.
Recorded Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR — recorded by telephone in September 2011, his last interview, 20 September 2011 source ↗
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