Maria Semple Quotes
I keep an elaborate calendar for my characters detailing on which dates everything happens. I'm 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.
Quotes to Explore
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Broadway is really my life.
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People think that celebs make a lot more money than we do. We look for bargains and we do a lot of stuff on our own.
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We must become acquainted with our emotional household: we must see our feelings as they actually are, not as we assume they are. This breaks their hypnotic and damaging hold on us.
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Because it is my second season with the team, no time has been wasted in getting to know the people I'm working with. I am aware of what the team is capable of and how the organisation works, and they are familiar with what makes me tick.
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It was my mother's idea. Her feeling was that I didn't have the intelligence to pick a trade myself.
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The best time to release a film is on a festive date like Divali or Eid, or at a time when there are no big films three to four weeks before or after.
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A lot of artists don't like the sound of their voice. They're put off by it.
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Meditation is difficult for many people because their thoughts are always on some distant object or place. One form of meditation is to label the thought as it appears and then choose to let it go.
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Even President Obama has not suggested he could get another country to pay for building a wall between Mexico and the United States.
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French people are never happy with what they have. They're always complaining. They're happy when they're complaining.
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We suffered a terrible blow on 11 September 2001. We responded with fear and anger. A fight-or-flight response is adaptive in any species. For us, given our power, fight was the only response we could imagine.
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Fighting bitterness can be a full-time job.
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Gird your hearts with silent fortitude, suffering yet hoping all things.
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That's just a symbol of how you should deal with a breakup. You can cry for a little bit, eat some ice cream, but I think, after that, it's like, get up, listen to some powerful music and do something that makes you happy, be productive.
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I always tell women to use the fact that we offer a different point of view in a room full of men, to their advantage. Because we often stand out, we gain a unique platform to demonstrate our knowledge and capabilities.
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'American Idol,' for me, is fizzling out. They can't package me, man... I'm an artist that's created this concept but used the 'American Idol' machine as a marketing tool.
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Now I have the bravery to do fine things.
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I love biographies. I read Patti Smith's 'Just Kids.' I'm into that time frame in New York, the '70s and '80s. In art school, I read 'Close to the Knives,' the autobiography of the artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz.
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I'm kind of goofy, and I need someone who has that, too. I'm looking for the inner freak in a guy.
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'Britain's Royal Families' became my first published book, in 1989, from The Bodley Head, and the rest of the story is - dare I say it? - history!
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When a president makes life and death decisions, he should draw strength and wisdom from broad and deep experience with the reasons for and the risks of committing our children to our defense. For no matter how many others are involved in the decision, the president is a lonely man in a dark room when the casualty reports come in.
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Tourette's is involuntary in that it is impossible not to do. And it's torture to know what you're doing and not be able to stop it.
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I keep an elaborate calendar for my characters detailing on which dates everything happens. I'm 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.
