Maria Semple Quotes

My father was a screenwriter, and I kind of grew up in that world. I always had a mind for characters and dialogue, and my head was filled with that stuff, so it seemed like a good place to start.

Maria Semple

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Quotes to Explore

• In 1958, my father invested everything he had in a business venture and became the largest automobile dealership in Chicago for Ford's new Edsel line. But Edsel sales plummeted and my father fell into bankruptcy. I watched him struggle; working long hours to protect us from poverty.

  

  Radhanath Swami
  • Long
  • Business
  • Father

• Bond? It is a bit like saying, 'Do you want to play Superman?' Anyone would dream of it. It's one of the most coveted roles in film. I'd be honoured. But I don't know if it will actually happen. I'm just happy with the idea of being associated with it. It's nice there's a lot of good will.

  

  Idris Elba
  • Good
  • Happy
  • Dream

• I have dedicated many years to economic study, up to the Ph.D. level, to analyze and understand the inherent weaknesses of aid and why aid policies have consistently failed to deliver on economic growth and poverty alleviation.

  

  Dambisa Moyo
  • Up
  • Why
  • Study

• Although he's no longer with us, Steve Jobs is still inspirational to me, as he managed to find the balance between right brain/left-brain thinking that is crucial to building a creative technology business.

  

  Imran Amed
  • Thinking
  • Business
  • Technology

• We have almost succeeded in leveling all human activities to the common denominator of securing the necessities of life and providing for their abundance.

  

  Hannah Arendt
  • Life
  • Human
  • Abundance

• Once every five hundred years or so, a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without.

  

  A. R. Ammons
  • Poetry
  • Years
  • Living

• Things were easier for the old novelists who saw people all of a piece. Speaking generally, their heroes were good through and through, their villains wholly bad.

  

  W. Somerset Maugham
  • People
  • Good
  • Bad

• On the one hand, the rich look askance at our continuing poverty - on the other, they warn us against their own methods.

  

  Indira Gandhi
  • Hand
  • Poverty
  • Look

• Well, after the divorce, I went home and turned all the lights on!

  

  Larry David
  • Home
  • Divorce
  • Lights

• Time stays, we go.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • Time
  • Go
  • Stays

• Contrary to what professional economists will typically tell you, economics is not a science. All economic theories have underlying political and ethical assumptions, which make it impossible to prove them right or wrong in the way we can with theories in physics or chemistry.

  

  Ha-Joon Chang
  • Political
  • Science
  • Professional

• When we write about Auschwitz, we must know that Auschwitz, in a certain sense at least, suspended literature. One can only write a black novel about Auschwitz or - you should excuse the expression - a cheap serial, which begins in Auschwitz and is still not over.

  

  Imre Kertesz
  • Black
  • Know
  • Literature

• If people don't get paid for their inventions, that's not a good thing. In the case of many patents, there are people who aren't in a position to take them to the next level. If you don't enforce your rights, no one is going to enforce them for you.

  

  Nathan Myhrvold
  • People
  • Good
  • You

• Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

  

  Jack Benny
  • Mind
  • Age
  • Matter

• My music, certainly, has never embarrassed me.

  

  Barry Gibb Bee Gees
  • Music
  • Me
  • Never

• Yesterday is a cancelled check. Today is cash on the line. Tomorrow is a promissory note.

  

  Hank Stram
  • Future
  • Today
  • Tomorrow

• David Lynch helped me be cool.

  

  Dana Ashbrook
  • Me
  • Cool
  • Helped

• You never stop thinking about technique, but really, the reason we're actors is because of the sheer joy of those few moments you get every now and again where you're totally present. The rest is just struggle and misery.

  

  Caitlin Fitzgerald
  • Thinking
  • Stop
  • Joy

• Several paranoid suspicions occurred to me, the worst of which was that my whole identity was merely a patched-together set of behaviors designed to keep my parents joined to each other - the repertoire of tricks of a small but intelligent dog.

  

  Amity Gaige
  • Together
  • Parents
  • Small

• Look at the Palestinians with the huge, huge percentage of unemployed. What does that breed? Anyone who's unemployed in the world, you feel there's no meaning and there's a risk that you drift over to something desperate. Yes, we have to tackle the social problems as well.

  

  Hans Blix
  • World
  • Risk
  • Meaning

• Mosalsky: Good folk! Maria Godunov and her son Feodor have poisoned themselves. We have seen their dead bodies. The People are silent with horror. Why are ye silent? Cry, Long live the Tsar Dimitry Ivanovich! The People are speechless.

  

  Alexander Pushkin
  • People
  • Good
  • Long

• We need to let the referee's sole thing be to protect the quarterback and get those late hits out of there. They even have a stat on television that says 'knockdowns.' Knockdowns means that you knock him down after he throws the ball. The assumption is, if it's legal, we'll make excuses for them.

  

  John Madden
  • Assumption
  • Excuses

• I wanted to talk about my life. There is so much. I was 18 when I made the record, and I had a lot to say.

  

  Janet Jackson
  • Life
  • Wanted
  • Made

• My father was a screenwriter, and I kind of grew up in that world. I always had a mind for characters and dialogue, and my head was filled with that stuff, so it seemed like a good place to start.

  

  Maria Semple
  • Up
  • World
  • Good