Maria Semple Quotes

Quotes about:

• The sooner you learn it's on you to make life interesting, the better off you'll be.

  Maria Semple

  Interesting, Better Off

  7 Copy quote

• Anything I write I ask myself: Is it true, is it entertaining?

  Maria Semple

  Writing, Entertaining, Asks

  Source: www.usatoday.com

  3 Copy quote

• That's right,' she told the girls. 'You are bored. And I'm going to let you in on a little secret about life. You think it's boring now? Well, it only gets more boring. The sooner you learn it's on you to make life interesting, the better off you'll be.

  Maria Semple

  Life, Girl, Thinking

  Maria Semple (2012). “Where'd You Go, Bernadette”, p.36, Hachette UK

  7 Copy quote

• When I'm sitting at my computer writing, I really have this fiendish smile on my face. I am not thinking about the past or the future or how it's going to be received. I feel that I'm very lucky that way; I don't carry that particular anxiety around with me. I'm not anxiety-free by any means, but that happens to be one that I've been spared.

  Maria Semple

  Writing, Mean, Past

  Source: www.usatoday.com

  3 Copy quote

• This is why you must love life: one day you're offering up your social security number to the Russian Mafia; two weeks later you're using the word calve as a verb.

  Maria Semple

  Love Life, Offering, Two

  Maria Semple (2012). “Where'd You Go, Bernadette”, p.241, Hachette UK

  6 Copy quote

• I'm not too good when exposed to people

  Maria Semple

  People, Exposed

  5 Copy quote

• Unfortunately Seattle is my muse, for the better or worse of Seattle - I'm not sure.

  Maria Semple

  Muse, Not Sure, Seattle

  Source: www.usatoday.com

  3 Copy quote

• You come out into the world after a season of TV and you're just swearing and saying mean things to people and they're looking at you like, Who are you? And oh yeah, you think, I have to reacclimate to the way people genuinely treat each other.

  Maria Semple

  Mean, Thinking, People

  Source: www.usatoday.com

  3 Copy quote

• I can't tell you the number of times I've been in the middle of a perfunctory conversation, and someone will say, 'Tell us what you really think.' Or 'Maybe you should switch to decaf.

  Maria Semple

  Thinking, Numbers, Intensity

  3 Copy quote

• Hovering over me was the Chihuly chandelier. Chihulys are the pigeons of Seattle. They're everywhere and even if they don't get in your way, you can't help but build up a kind of antipathy toward them.

  Maria Semple

  Hovering, Way, Pigeons

  9 Copy quote

• I keep an elaborate calendar for my characters detailing on which dates everything happens. Im constantly revising this as I go along. It gives me the freedom to intricately plot my story, knowing it will at least hold up on a timeline.

  Maria Semple

  Character, Knowing, Giving

  4 Copy quote

• I'll see something awful on the street and I'll come home and say to my boyfriend, "I just saw the funniest thing on the street." It's a stance. It's the way I was born, or the way I was damaged.

  Maria Semple

  Home, My Boyfriend, Awful

  Source: www.usatoday.com

  3 Copy quote

• I felt so full of love for everything. But at the same time, I felt so hung out there to dry, like nobody could ever understand. I felt so alone in this world, and so loved at the same time.

  Maria Semple

  Life, World, Dry

  3 Copy quote

• Being in writers' rooms turns you feral. You are swearing, you are going to very dark, mean places. You start out in the room with all these smart people, and you're all well-read and well-educated and the humor is really erudite. And then over the course of the year, after the production schedule grinds you down, it is just so mean and stupid.

  Maria Semple

  Smart, Stupid, Mean

  Source: www.usatoday.com

  7 Copy quote

• We were like the Beatles, Dad.' 'I know you think that, sweetie' 'Seriously. Mom is John, you're Paul, I'm George, and Ice Cream is Ringo.' 'Ice Cream,' I said. 'Resentful of the past, fearful of the future...everytime we saw Ice Cream sitting there with her mouth open, we'd say, Poor Ice Cream, resentful of the past, fearful of the future.

  Maria Semple

  Mom, Dad, Past

  4 Copy quote

• I spend my whole life trying to put up a front to prevent people from seeing certain parts of me. Weirdly, when I go to write, I feel like I have to expose it, almost compulsively.

  Maria Semple

  Writing, People, Trying

  Source: www.usatoday.com

  3 Copy quote

• My way of looking at the world is that if it is true, it is funny and it is dark. No matter how dark it is, I just think it is funny. I can't help it.

  Maria Semple

  Dark, Thinking, World

  Source: www.usatoday.com

  3 Copy quote

• When your eyes are softly focused on the horizon for sustained periods, your brain releases endorphins. It's the same as a runner's high. These days, we spend our lives staring at screens twelve inches in front of us.

  Maria Semple

  Eye, Brain, Horizon

  Maria Semple (2012). “Where'd You Go, Bernadette”, p.228, Hachette UK

  3 Copy quote

• Its like a hypnotist put everyone from Seattle into a collective trance. You are getting sleepy, when you wake up you will want to live only in a Craftsman house, the year won't matter to you, all that will matter is that the walls will be thick, the windows tiny, the rooms dark, the ceilings low, and it will be poorly situated on the lot.

  Maria Semple

  Wall, Dark, Years

  "Where'd You Go, Bernadette?". Book by Maria Semple, 2012.

  5 Copy quote

• I want find a part of myself that I feel shame about, or that I feel really scared of exposing to the world.

  Maria Semple

  World, Want, Scared

  Source: www.usatoday.com

  3 Copy quote

• I think thats the most important job of a novelist - to bring authority to their writing.

  Maria Semple

  Jobs, Writing, Thinking

  "'Where'd You Go, Bernadette' author Maria Semple talks about her new book". Interview with Molly Driscoll, www.csmonitor.com. Ocotber 3, 2012.

  3 Copy quote

• Ruthless concern with story is what I learned in television.

  Maria Semple

  Stories, Television, Ruthless

  3 Copy quote

• I think because I try to keep things as real as I can, or I try to start from a place of reality, I almost don't have the imagination to write a book that's not set where I am.

  Maria Semple

  Real, Book, Writing

  "'Where'd You Go, Bernadette' author Maria Semple talks about her new book". Interview with Molly Driscoll, www.csmonitor.com. October 3, 2012.

  6 Copy quote

• I'd say I never considered myself a great architect. I'm more of a creative problem solver with good taste and a soft spot for logistical nightmares.

  Maria Semple

  Creative, Taste, Nightmare

  3 Copy quote

• I drop my kid off at school and then race home, and its a very limited time. I can only do really serious writing for a couple of hours. And then I always go on a walk, I do a one-to-two-hour walk; I dont go running or hard hiking.

  Maria Semple

  Running, Couple, Home

  3 Copy quote

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