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 running off to the city, whether it was Philly or New York, going somewhere where there was something more for me.

  

  Halsey
  • Me
  • Running
  • City

• Television is much more complex, brain-challenging and involved than it used to be. It's almost impossible to watch a television show from 15 years ago; it's just too boring. I think modern television shows, with their intricate plots, are stimulating our minds. This is one reason IQs have been going up.

  

  Alex Tabarrok
  • Up
  • Brain

• Standup is a form of therapy. It is OK to tell problems to your audience as long as you are being honest and not boring them. I tell them that I am saving $75 an hour when I talk to them instead of a therapist.

  

  Bill Engvall
  • Long

• People also like partnerships because they can identify with the drama of two people in partnership. They can feed off a partnership, and that keeps people entertained. Besides, if you have a successful partnership, it's self-sustaining.

  

  Mick Jagger The Rolling Stones
  • People
  • Drama
  • Partnerships

• Oftentimes when people make movies about the '80s, they go back and look at '80s films, but those look nothing like the '80s. It's some watered-down version of reality.

  

  Brett Morgen
  • People
  • Reality
  • Movies

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

  

  Maria Semple
  • Book
  • Reality
  • Drama