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Maurice Sendak

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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Question Are you afraid of death? Death & what remains read 17 other answers →
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 ↗

Question What are you still hoping to finish? Death & what remains read 8 other answers →
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 ↗

Question What would you say to somebody you love if you knew it was your last chance to say it — and have you said it? Death & what remains read 1 other answer →
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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