Maria Semple Quotes
Top 100 wise famous quotes and sayings by Maria Semple
Maria Semple Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from Maria Semple on Wise Famous Quotes.
There's something uniquely exhilarating about puzzling together the truth at the hands of an unreliable narrator.
I learned that comedy is born out of strong characters. I won't begin writing a character until I have a clear take on them.
I got a huge knot in my stomach because if Antarctica could talk, it would be saying only one thing: you don't belong here. (277)
In order to make the April mortgage, Kurt had been forced to sell all his CDs, disconnect his Internet, and never set foot in a Jamba Juice.
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.
People say Seattle is one of the toughest cities in which to make friends. They even have a name for it, the 'Seattle freeze'.
The way you might fear a cow sitting down in the middle of the street during rush hour, that's how I fear Canadians.
Bernadette and her enthusiasm were like a hippo and water: get between them and you'll be trampled to death.
But you have a vision. You put a frame around it. You sign your name anyway. That's the risk. That's the leap.
People who don't get seasick have no idea what it's like. It's not just nausea. It's nausea plus losing the will to live.
Breezy, sophisticated, hilarious, rude and aching with sweetness: LOVE, NINA might be the most charming book I've ever read.
If I had written something, and I had written myself into a corner, I didn't abandon it. Because I remembered: There's always more.
I don't mind finding these ugly sides to my personality and exaggerating them because that's something you can write towards.
One of the main reasons I don't like leaving the house is because I might find myself face to face with a Canadian.
Now that Dad was crying, I was, like, both of us can't be sitting on rocks in Antarctica crying. It's going to be OK, Dad.
I think it was Oscar Wilde who said, You wouldn't care about what other people thought about you if you realized how seldom they actually did.
I don't know if it's possible to feel everything all at once, so much that you think you're going to burst.
When I wrote for TV, I was always thinking in terms of character and story. After fifteen years, it became hard-wired in me.
It's a quantum physics concept where everything that can happen, is happening, in an infinite number of parallel universes.
I asked Joe if he hated Ivy and Bucky. He said, "That would make as much sense as hating a rattlesnake. You don't hate rattlesnakes; you avoid them.
I try to begin with a strong grasp of my characters. Even if it's schematic, I need it clear in my head who these people are.
I just feel like there's this illicit thrill in reading other people's mail and spying on their lives.
You don't have to comment on every boring thing you do." I said. "This isn't Olympic curling. You're just unpacking a suitcase.
don't care where you live, but here in Seattle, our restaurants are better than your restaurants. "Hmmm,
I know it's a lot. But she can handle it. I'd rather ruin her with the truth than ruin her with lies.
The first stop on this crazy train is Kindergarten Junction, and nobody gets off until it pulls into Harvard Station.
Novels demand a certain complexity of narrative and scope, so it's necessary for the characters to change.
Was it happiness I'd found in my long marriage? Or capitulation? Or is that all happiness is, capitulation?
My talent isn't so much in traditional research as in finding really smart people and badgering them with questions.
Just because it's complicated, just because you think you can't ever know everything about another person, it doesn't mean you can't try.
'Where'd You Go, Bernadette' was surprisingly easy and fun to write because I was feeling such strong emotions.
I think that everyone in Seattle, their daily existence, is enriched by all the charitable giving that is courtesy of Microsoft.
Both 'Where'd You Go, Bernadette' and my first novel, 'This One is Mine,' are pretty complex on a story level, and fun reads as a result.
Maybe that's what religion is, hurling yourself off a cliff and trusting that something bigger will take care of you and carry you to the right place.
I'm not the comedy police, but you watch a movie, and everyone's laughing, and then you shake it out, and you realize, 'There's no joke there!'
In TV writing, I felt like Gulliver being tied down by the Lilliputians. There's so much more freedom in fiction writing.
There's a story that during the filming of Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola had a sign on his trailer: Fast, Cheap, Good: Pick Two.
In a lot of ways, TV writing taught me how to be a good storyteller. I learned about dialogue, scenes, moving the plot forward.
'Mad About You' fit my sensibility the most of any show that I worked on, and as a result, it was really fun. It felt like a very natural fit.
Even when I was writing 'Where'd You Go, Bernadette,' I started to appreciate Seattle's many charms.
I know what it's like to feel snobby; I know what it's like to feel anxiety; I know what it's like to feel like busted because you're crazy.