Maria Semple Quotes
In TV writing, I felt like Gulliver being tied down by the Lilliputians. There's so much more freedom in fiction writing.

Quotes to Explore
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So people think I'm lying about my age all the time? It's the records that are wrong. I've never told anyone how old I am. The minute they ask me, I say 'That's none of your business.' So that means I've never once lied about my age. Now that's true!
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One can never know enough. The unknown and its call lies even in what we know.
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Therapists need to have a long experience in personal therapy to see what it's like to be on the other side of the couch and see what they find helpful or not helpful.
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There's no regrets for me.
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What people don't appreciate, when they picture Terminator-style automatons striding triumphantly across a mountain of human skulls, is how hard it is to keep your footing on something as unstable as a mountain of human skulls. Most humans probably couldn't manage it, and they've had a lifetime of practice at walking without falling over.
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It goes without saying that it's hard to attain a certain level of success.
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It was a small provincial place with great people and I had a happy childhood growing up in Queens.
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Anti-religious sneers are a hallmark of perpetual adolescents.
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I am happy that I have entertained people and made them happy.
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There's no smarter politician out there than Bill Clinton.
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To understand how Republicans lost the African American vote, we must first understand how we won the African American vote.
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VR is going to become something mainstream, but it's not going to happen right away. You just don't have the horsepower to make it happen on a device, much less a cheap enough and comfortable enough device that a normal consumer is going to want to have.
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I never believed I was the best fighter in the world.
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The challenge with 'Watchmen' is making sure that the ideas that were in the book got into the movie. That was my biggest stretch. I wanted people to watch the movie and get it. It's one of those things where, over time, it has happened more.
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Personal responsibility is not only recognizing the errors of our ways. Personal responsibility lies in our willingness and ability to correct those errors individually and collectively.
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America is rather like life. You can usually find in it what you look for. It will probably be interesting, and it is sure to be large.
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Using MO to link crimes can be problematic.
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Keratin can be very colorful, as we see in birds. We'd expect dinosaurs to be very colorful because they basically invented the characteristics we see in birds.
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We had this thing at Stanford called the 'Campus Loop,' and then we had another run called 'The Dish,' and you'd run up to this giant satellite dish, which was probably extremely unhealthy. I would do those two runs, and I just found it so therapeutic. My girlfriends and I would have these great conversations about guys and school and life.
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Women must be full partners in development, so they can lift themselves and their communities out of poverty.
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Oh each successive night that comes has something in it of an abandoned ember that is slowly burning out, and it falls swathed in ruins, surrounded by funereal objects.
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It was probably my parents who inspired me most. My father was a scientist and answered my scientific questions, while my mother took me on walks and showed me birds and plants. She also took me out at night and showed me the constellations and the aurora.
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I have found I'm leaning toward more vibrant colors because I'm so happy in them.
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In TV writing, I felt like Gulliver being tied down by the Lilliputians. There's so much more freedom in fiction writing.