“I want to see me to the end working, living for myself. "Ripeness is all." Now, interpreting what ripeness is our own individual problem.”
Sendak here quotes from King Lear by William Shakespeare : Men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither: Ripeness is all.
NOW interview (2004)
Context: My big concern is me and what do I do now until the time of my death. That is valid. That is useful. That is beautiful. That is creative. And also, I want to be free again. I want to be free like when I was a kid … Where we just had fun. What I mean by this is I've had my career. I've had my success. God willing, it should have happened to Herman Melville who deserved it a great deal more, you know? Imagine him being on Bill Moyers' show. Nothing good happened to Herman Melville. I want to see me to the end working, living for myself. "Ripeness is all." Now, interpreting what ripeness is our own individual problem. … So, what is the point of it all? Not leaving legacies. But being ripe. Being ripe.
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Maurice Sendak 53
American illustrator and writer of children's books 1928–2012Related quotes
Diary entry (January/February 1918), # 1104, The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918 (p. 387)
1916 - 1920
"Egoism" as quoted by Amy Lowell, "Edgar Lee Masters and Carl Sandburg," Tendencies in Modern American Poetry http://books.google.com/books?id=UgZaAAAAMAAJ (1917)
1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nature
"War of the Worldviews", p. 352
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)
as quoted in photo-exhibition 'Cy Twombly', museum Marseille Amsterdam, autumn 2008
2000s
On including the world of nonprofits in Insecure in “'Awkward' And 'Insecure' Get To The Root Of Writer Issa Rae's Humor” https://www.npr.org/2018/09/03/643673530/awkward-and-insecure-get-to-the-root-of-writer-issa-raes-humor] in NPR (2018 Sep 3)
NOW interview (2004)
Context: The ripeness was a letter that John Keats wrote to his brother who emigrated to America describing what it was like to have a peach or piece of a peach in his mouth. And it's one of the sexiest things you will ever read of how slow you should take the peach. Don't rush it. Let it go through your palette. Let it lie on your tongue. Let it melt a little bit. Let it run from the corners. It's like describing the most incredible sex orgy. And then, you bite. But, it must be so ripe. It must be so delicious. In other words, you must not waste a second of this deliciousness which for him was life and being a great poet. That you savor every, everything that happened. I want to get ripe.