Maria Semple Quotes

My favorite kind of book is a domestic drama that's grounded in reality yet slightly unhinged.

Maria Semple

• Book
• Reality
• Drama

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Quotes to Explore

• The more I compose, the more I know that I don't know it all. I think it's a good way to start. If you think you know it all, the work becomes a repetition of what you've already done. I try to make sure that I don't repeat my music.

  

  A. R. Rahman
  • Good
  • Work
  • Music

• I feel like we all have our skeletons.

  

  Taraji P. Henson
  • Like
  • Feel
  • I Feel Like

• When I was in high school, I was really into string theory and superstring theory and read 'Scientific American.' It's fascinating.

  

  Sam Trammell
  • School
  • American
  • High

• I believe it is universally understood and acknowledged that all men will ever act correctly, unless they have a motive to do otherwise.

  

  Abraham Lincoln
  • Believe
  • Men
  • Act

• I don't want people to know what I'm actually like. It's not good for an actor.

  

  Jack Nicholson
  • People
  • Good
  • Want

• In 2007, everything changed with the iPhone. As crippled as that first model now seems, with its lack of apps and glacial cellular connectivity, the iPhone was a practical, useful, self-contained computer a child could understand. It was an information appliance.

  

  Walt Mossberg
  • Child
  • Model
  • Information

• I would like to do a duet with Taylor Hanson, because I have loved Hanson since I was 8.

  

  Taylor Swift
  • Like
  • Loved
  • Because

• I never ask a man what his business is, for it never interests me. What I ask him about are his thoughts and dreams.

  

  H. P. Lovecraft
  • Business
  • Man
  • Thoughts

• My original idea was to produce and not make records myself.

  

  T Bone Burnett
  • Myself
  • Idea
  • Original

• Do not despise the fish because they are absolutely unable to speak or to reason, but fear lest you may be even more unreasonable than they by resisting the command of the Creator. Listen to the fish, who through their actions all but utter this word: 'We set out on this long journey for the perpetuation of our species.'

  

  Saint Basil
  • Long
  • May
  • Fear

• I see many black males grasping for some thread of hope. There are so many destructive practices, glimpses into a psychic abyss. That must be very frightening.

  

  Yusef Komunyakaa
  • Hope
  • Black
  • See

• I think there's plenty of evidence that we need to stop spewing so much carbon into the air, that we're contributing to climate change and that we ought to look for alternatives.

  

  Lamar Alexander
  • Change
  • Stop
  • Air

• I sort of understood that when I first started: that you shouldn't repeat a success. Very often you're going to, and maybe the first time you do, it works. And you love it. But then you're trapped.

  

  Jack Nicholson
  • Time
  • Love
  • Success

• I had all these tapes in my closet that I had shot years ago with my friend Jean-Michel Basquiat. I was working on a film about him when he died, and then I just put everything away. It was too sad.

  

  Tamra Davis
  • Friend
  • Years
  • Sad

• It's pure Black Label. It's about violence and booze. That's all it is. There is no plan.

  

  Zakk Wylde Black Label Society
  • Black
  • Violence
  • Plan

• There are no silos at 'Frontline.' Our digital team works with our filmmakers, and our filmmakers work with our digital team. They're always in touch, and they're always talking.

  

  Raney Aronson-Rath
  • Work
  • Team
  • Always

• We're in a world that celebrates things: success, beauty, money. And I reckon that's really about 4 per cent of the world. The rest of us are just getting on with it.

  

  Imelda Staunton
  • World
  • Money
  • Success

• I'm known as a kind of dramatic, serious, almost humorless actor and the fact is, I'm a funny guy, and I spend most of my life trying to find a lighter side of things, and on stage was given plenty of opportunity to do that.

  

  Campbell Scott
  • Life
  • Trying
  • Guy

• I was always writing the books that I wanted to write, books that demanded to be written at the time. But, like most writers, you start off feeling your way.

  

  Val McDermid
  • Time
  • Writing
  • Feeling

• All my life, I have taken inventory at intervals. For example, when I became a movie actor and suddenly I had to deal with fame, money and playing so many roles, I lost myself. I said, 'Who am I?' And I wrote my first book to deal with that, 'The Ragman's Son.'

  

  Kirk Douglas
  • Life
  • Money
  • Book

• Submitting to censorship is to enter the seductive world of 'The Giver': the world where there are no bad words and no bad deeds. But it is also the world where choice has been taken away and reality distorted. And that is the most dangerous world of all.

  

  Lois Lowry
  • World
  • Bad
  • Reality

• Isn't it wonderful how dogs can win friends and influence people without ever reading a book.

  

  Charles E. McKenzie
  • People
  • Book
  • Friends

• Places change all the time, and the type of people who live there change.

  

  Martin Parr
  • People
  • Time
  • Live

• My favorite kind of book is a domestic drama that's grounded in reality yet slightly unhinged.

  

  Maria Semple
  • Book
  • Reality
  • Drama