Maria Semple Quotes
I always write authors after I read their books. I've been doing it for years. I write a formal letter and send it to them in care of their agent. My mother always taught us to write thank you notes, and if an author puts themselves out there, they like to hear that their book connected with someone.
Quotes to Explore
-
Every employee needs to know that there's somebody out there that they serve. And when we don't let people know that for one reason or another, we're depriving them of a fulfilling job.
-
There are really two kinds of optimism. There's the complacent, Pollyanna optimism that says, 'Don't worry - everything will be just fine,' and that allows one to just lay back and do nothing about the problems around you. Then there's what we call dynamic optimism. That's an optimism based on action.
-
There was a point where I really felt I had 'penniless divorcee lone parent' tattooed on my head.
-
The American grips himself, at the very sources of his consciousness, in a grip of care: and then, to so much of the rest of life, is indifferent. Whereas, the European hasn't got so much care in him, so he cares much more for life and living.
-
I just wear black and gray all the time. If you Google Image me, you'll just see a bunch of black and gray. It's simple. If I like a shirt, I'll buy six or eight of them, wear them back-to-back, and just wait for somebody to say something. 'That's the same shirt you wore yesterday.' 'Yeah, but this one is fresh.'
-
One of the things I wonder is whether it's good that the whole free model makes a lot of people listen to more of your music. I'm wondering if it devalues it, it becomes disposable, because you can get it so easily.
-
Anyone can call himself a promoter. Anyone can call himself a promoter and stage a fight. Unlike other professional sports, whose owners collude out of mutual interest in their sport's image and general welfare, there are no real alliances or partnerships in boxing.
-
Each person is living for himself; his own happiness is all he can ever personally feel.
-
The GOP is broken. They need a Bill Clinton moment with someone to figure things out. Let me just say - and I don't agree with his policies, so let me put a warning label on the side of the packet here - If George W. Bush had never gotten in the disastrous Iraq war, he was trying to modernize the party on a series of fronts.
-
I was under the false impression that I could sing in high school, so I did a lot of musical stuff. I can't sing or dance, so that was entertaining for everyone.
-
Leadership has become a heavy industry. Concern and interest about leadership development is no longer an American phenomenon. It is truly global. Though I will probably be in less demand, I wanted to move on.
-
I can never believe how much time and energy and money and talent and everything else is being poured into horrible ideas.
-
Every newspaper editor says the heart of the paper is the reporter - which is true - except for the pay!
-
Before I gave birth to Hope, I had a miscarriage. The pain was so enormous, I had to write myself out of it. I kept a diary and did not feel entirely complete until Hope was born.
-
I always loved Sam Cooke, because he seemed very versatile. He sang gospel, soul, blues, pop music.
-
The corporate right fires up the religious right against gay marriage and abortion and uses their votes to push their deregulation and tax cuts for the rich. It's an old trick. The House of Saud has the same arrangement with the Mullahs in Saudi Arabia.
-
I don't go to the doctor except when I'm very ill, and when I go to India, I drink a drop of local water.
-
Even when I turn 60, they'll call me a child actor.
-
When I come home, I'm just Maisie, and everywhere I go, I'm just Maisie!
-
I'm obsessed with zombies. I like watching zombie movies and I read zombie books.
-
I get to show the reader the essence of the book without giving anything away.
-
A people's relationship to their heritage is the same as the relationship of a child to its mother.
-
The sigh of History rises over ruins, not over landscapes, and in the Antilles there are few ruins to sigh over, apart from the ruins of sugar estates and abandoned forts.
-
I always write authors after I read their books. I've been doing it for years. I write a formal letter and send it to them in care of their agent. My mother always taught us to write thank you notes, and if an author puts themselves out there, they like to hear that their book connected with someone.
