Art & Creativity Quote by Ludwig Bemelmans

There is something deliciously brutal in Bemelmans describing his finished books like unwanted houseguests: once they have served their purpose, he boots them out. The line is funny because it’s staged as physical comedy (kicking a book “in the belly”), but the joke has teeth. He’s puncturing the romantic idea of the author lovingly preserving his creations. Instead, he frames writing as an act of expulsion: get it out of your system, then move on before sentimentality turns the work into a shrine.

The “they would embarrass me” is the real tell. Bemelmans is admitting that the moment a book is done, it freezes a version of the self he no longer wants to inhabit. Keeping copies around would mean living with old decisions, old sentences, old limits. The subtext is artistic restlessness: any finished work becomes proof of imperfection, and proof is hard to negotiate when your job is to keep inventing.

Context matters here. Bemelmans was a prolific writer and illustrator, moving between sophisticated adult fiction and the beloved Madeline books. That public split intensifies the private cringe: children’s classics become cultural property, but for the maker they can feel like yesterday’s costume. His vow to be “done with them” reads like self-defense against nostalgia, critics, and even fans. It’s not contempt for the work as much as refusal to be trapped by it.