Maria Semple Quotes

Novels demand a certain complexity of narrative and scope, so it's necessary for the characters to change.

Maria Semple

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• My experience growing up in a rough and tumble town in the blue-collar world of Western Pennsylvania in the 1970s was that anything a man did was always more important than anything a woman did.

  

  Tawni O'Dell
  • Up
  • World
  • Important

• Just being the seeker, somebody whose open to spiritual enlightenment, is in itself the important thing and it's the reward for being a seeker in this world.

  

  Walter Isaacson
  • World
  • Important
  • Spiritual

• I know exactly what it is like to fight against the odds and to overcome adversity.

  

  Karen Handel
  • Know
  • Fight
  • Adversity

• The progress of India is the destiny of one-sixth of humanity. And it will also mean a world more confident of its prosperity and more secure about its future.

  

  Narendra Modi
  • World
  • Future
  • Humanity

• Fortunately, I don't spend too much time reading or worrying about what people have to say, but the goal for me throughout this whole process - throughout my whole life - is to try to be happy.

  

  Landon Donovan
  • People
  • Life
  • Time

• I had 500 kids at camp this past summer for example. We do nine weeks for kids and nine days for grown ups every summer. The adult camp is a lot of fun.

  

  Wavy Gravy
  • Kids
  • Fun
  • Past

• Hair wax is my go-to. When it comes to shampoo, I use whatever is at the rink.

  

  Carl Hagelin
  • Hair
  • Whatever
  • Wax

• A woman's whole life is a history of the affections.

  

  Washington Irving
  • Life
  • History
  • Woman

• Before a shoot, I'll watch what I eat. During the shoot, I watch what I eat. Afterwards, the first thing I do is go have a steak and French fries.

  

  Camila Alves
  • First
  • Watch
  • Steak

• If you are a woman, you might feel torn between logical agreement and emotional resistance. Why? It seems like a simpler solution to blame men for the pay gap than to engineer your own bridge to higher pay.

  

  Warren Farrell
  • Men
  • Why
  • Woman

• When we think of India, most of us are in fact thinking of Rajasthan, that large splotch of dun-colored desert in the country's northwest which, from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, was ruled by a succession of maharajas whose sense of color, opulence, and splendor created the most enduring images of India in the West.

  

  Hanya Yanagihara
  • Thinking
  • Country
  • Color

• I guess I'm attracted to people who are singing about love or life, and they have a particular passion that I can connect with.

  

  Langhorne Slim
  • People
  • Life
  • Passion

• The U.S. government places considerable trust in those given access to classified information, and we are committed to prosecuting those who abuse that trust.

  

  Dana Boente
  • Government
  • Trust
  • Abuse

• I do think musical-theater actors can get a bad rap, and I see why. There is a certain slickness - there's nothing better than an amazing musical, but an okay musical can be one of the worst times you've ever had.

  

  Laura Benanti
  • Why
  • Bad
  • Think

• I was once thrown out of a mental hospital for depressing the other patients.

  

  Oscar Levant

• Oh, I was only twenty four hours from Tulsa,Ah, only one day away from your arms;I hate to do this to you but I love somebody new, what can I do?And I can never, never, never … go home again.

  

  Hal David
  • Home
  • Hate

• Talk is cheap. Show me the code.

  

  Linus Torvalds

• A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumour, and survival a thing beyond the bounds of possibility.

  

  Aldous Huxley
  • Death
  • Knowledge
  • Ambition

• I feel like kids in general, not just African-American kids, are influenced by what they see, both positive and negative.

  

  Curtis Granderson
  • Kids
  • American
  • Positive

• When you are a novelist, you are used to making a narrative do what you want.

  

  John Niven

• The quality of your play never counts as much as the quality of your effort.

  

  Bud Wilkinson
  • Play
  • Quality
  • Effort

• Ava DuVernay is my personal Phil Jackson. She's a perfect coach.

  

  Omar Dorsey
  • She
  • Perfect
  • Coach

• I don't want anything that I buy to have done any harm to anyone or anything.

  

  Kevin McCloud
  • Done

• Novels demand a certain complexity of narrative and scope, so it's necessary for the characters to change.

  

  Maria Semple