Maria Semple Quotes
After decades spent in rewrite rooms surrounded by other shouting writers, I discovered that I work best alone. I like being in charge of my time, working out the problems according to my own rhythms and being able to nap.
Quotes to Explore
-
I had read Plato and Kant, but I had forgotten it.
-
The joining of the whole congregation in prayer has something exceedingly solemn and affecting in it.
-
I spent years studying the teachings of Patanjali, and he reminded us several thousand years ago that when we are steadfast - which means that we never slip in our abstention of thoughts of harm directed toward others - then all living creatures cease to feel enmity in our presence.
-
Country music tells stories, and I've always loved to tell stories.
-
We are not interested in cloning the Michael Jordans and the Michael Jacksons of this world. The rich and the famous don't participate in this.
-
I know exactly what it is like to fight against the odds and to overcome adversity.
-
In Russia all tyrants believe poets to be their worst enemies.
-
In my job I meet many outstanding, world class, British based companies. But we need more companies and more jobs in the companies we have.
-
It's so hard to be the girl in a country song, so we're speaking up.
-
In its conception the literature prize belongs to days when a writer could still be thought of as, by virtue of his or her occupation, a sage, someone with no institutional affiliations who could offer an authoritative word on our times as well as on our moral life.
-
Care for life and physical health, with due regard for the needs of others and the common good, is concomitant with respect for human dignity.
-
The expectation was that 'True Confessions' would be my first published book, but that didn't happen. After it was rejected by every publisher in New York and Canada, I shoved it in a closet and went on to write and publish my next three books.
-
Oh God, I don't know if I ever really felt beautiful. I don't, really.
-
Fools are more to be feared than the wicked.
-
It's a weird scene. You win a few baseball games and all of a sudden you're surrounded by reporters and TV men with cameras asking you about Vietnam and race relations.
-
Any personal crisis - you have to use it to get stronger.
-
Today, computers help us making the music. It's really a tool.
-
I was raised on NBC television.
-
I go home, and I'm a blob. I just lay there and don't do anything - lay by the pool with the other husbands while the wives work. It's fantastic. It's really good. That's kind of our life at home.
-
A curious paradox: people have only the narrowest private interest in mind when they act, yet they are at the same time more than ever determined in their behavior by the instincts of the mass. ... The diversity of individual goals is immaterial in face of the identity of the determining forces.
-
I have to say, my husband is a big Patriots fan. Like, a huge Patriots fan.
-
Short-story writing requires an exquisite sense of balance. Novelists, frankly, can get away with more. A novel can have a dull spot or two, because the reader has made a different commitment.
-
A lot of women find that their workwear acts as armour.
-
After decades spent in rewrite rooms surrounded by other shouting writers, I discovered that I work best alone. I like being in charge of my time, working out the problems according to my own rhythms and being able to nap.
