Quotes from book
Where the Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things Are is a 1963 children's picture book by American writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak, originally published by Harper & Row. The book has been adapted into other media several times, including an animated short in 1973 ; a 1980 opera; and a live-action 2009 feature-film adaptation, directed by Spike Jonze. The book had sold over 19 million copies worldwide as of 2009, with 10 million of those being in the United States.Sendak won the annual Caldecott Medal from the children's librarians in 1964, recognizing Wild Things as the previous year's "most distinguished American picture book for children". It was voted the number one picture book in a 2012 survey of School Library Journal readers, not for the first time.


“Please don't go. We'll eat you up. We love you so.”

Variant: Oh, please don't go—we'll eat you up—we love you so!
Source: Parting words of the Wild Things to Max in Where the Wild Things Are (1963)

“I'll eat you up!”

Variant: I'll eat you up I love you so.
Source: Where the Wild Things Are

“And the walls became the world all around.”

Source: Where the Wild Things Are

“And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.”

Source: Where the Wild Things Are (1963); of this passage Bill Moyers stated in "NOW with Bill Moyers", PBS (12 March 2004) http://www.pbs.org/now/arts/sendak.html:
Context: And when he came to the place where the wild things are, they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws till Max said, "Be still" and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once.
Context: And when he came to the place where the wild things are, they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws till Max said, "Be still" and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once. And they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all and made him king of all wild things.

“Let the wild rumpus start!”

Variant: "And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!"
Source: Where the Wild Things Are (1963)

Similar authors

Maurice Sendak photo
Maurice Sendak 53
American illustrator and writer of children's books 1928–2012
Erich Kästner photo
Erich Kästner 1
German children's writer
Oliver Herford photo
Oliver Herford 14
American writer
Stan Lee photo
Stan Lee 21
American comic book writer
Richard Bach photo
Richard Bach 154
American spiritual writer
Ray Bradbury photo
Ray Bradbury 401
American writer
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald 411
American novelist and screenwriter
Isaac Bashevis Singer photo
Isaac Bashevis Singer 39
Polish-born Jewish-American author
Frank Herbert photo
Frank Herbert 158
American writer
Joseph Campbell photo
Joseph Campbell 140
American mythologist, writer and lecturer