Maria Semple Quotes

I think a novel has to be about where you are at a given moment in time. I think it really needs to represent some specific pain you're going through. it's not just a story.

Maria Semple

• Time
• Pain

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• Your ability to use the principle of autosuggestion will depend, very largely, upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession.

  

  Napoleon Hill
  • Desire
  • Principle
  • Obsession

• A writer is a human being. He has to live with a sense of honor.

  

  Irwin Shaw
  • Live
  • Human
  • Honor

• To be honest, proper recognition has only come from the fans. I don't want to be hard, and I don't want to be negative, but I want to be honest.

  

  Yaya Toure
  • Want
  • Negative
  • Recognition

• So yeah, I play the piano for most of the show, but I like rock and roll.

  

  Gavin DeGraw
  • Rock
  • Piano
  • Rock And Roll

• With a poetry book I can send 100 copies out to reviewers and other people, and even do it in advance and get their response. It's difficult with iPad: how do you send it out for free, and how do you even disseminate it before it goes into their store?

  

  Felix Dennis
  • People
  • Book
  • Free

• I have written a lot about the fine arts, but I'd never written about the literary arts, and so on some level Dante really, you know, spoke to me, as new ground but also familiar ground.

  

  Dan Brown
  • Know
  • Written
  • Arts

• So, two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism.

  

  E. M. Forster
  • Democracy
  • Criticism
  • Cheers

• Ohio has long been an embarrassment to charter-school supporters nationwide, with its trail of scandal and graft and abysmal student performance.

  

  Laura Moser
  • Long
  • School
  • Performance

• You feel it in there, pacing your heart sometimes, and it has what's called a defibrillator. Should I suffer that arhythmia, it's generally sudden death. And the paddles that are internal shock you back and restore your rhythm to its normal and natural state.

  

  Victoria Gotti
  • Heart
  • Death
  • Sometimes

• The lives of African-Americans in this country are characterized by violence for most of our history. Much of that violence, at least to some extent, you know, done by the very state that's supposed to protect them.

  

  Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • Country
  • Done
  • History

• I am a control freak. I will admit that freely.

  

  J. Michael Straczynski
  • Control
  • Admit
  • Freak

• I would hate for my father to regret all his support that he's given me over the years and be embarrassed by anything I chose to do.

  

  Katee Sackhoff
  • Father
  • Hate
  • Support

• At the end of the spectrum when you get to that 12th step, when you have that spiritual awakening we make ourselves available to help other people.

  

  Daniel Baldwin
  • People
  • Help
  • Spiritual

• You trivialize the idea of competition totally, then there's no point in having the competition in the first place, and everybody is getting a trophy.

  

  Wayne Rogers
  • Idea
  • Competition
  • Place

• I do this thing with my daughter - I put my hand on her face and shake her head, but really affectionately. But I didn't think, and I did that to Flea.

  

  Watkin Tudor Jones
  • Think
  • Hand
  • Daughter

• I wasn't a major in political science for nothing, so I understood the politics of beauty and the politics of race when it comes to the fashion industry.

  

  Iman
  • Science
  • Political
  • Fashion

• There's some quality you get when you're not totally comfortable. When you're not doing what you're used to, you could completely fall on your face. You could completely blow it.

  

  Beck
  • Fall
  • Quality
  • Doing

• Being funny with a funny voice is more my comfort zone, a broader character that I try to humanize, a kind of silly or wacky persona that I try to fill in.

  

  Hank Azaria
  • Character
  • Funny
  • Voice

• In 2011, General Alston, four-star commander in Iraq, recommended to the President, a force level of over 20,000. The President rejected it and pulled out all the forces with what is now known as a disastrous consequence in Syria.

  

  Jack Keane
  • Star
  • President
  • Now

• The Christian religion, [Pascal] claims, teaches two truths: that there is a God who men are capable of knowing, and that there is an element of corruption in men that renders them unworthy of God. Knowledge of God without knowledge of man's wretchedness begets pride, and knowledge of man's wretchedness without knowledge of God begets despair, but knowledge of Jesus Christ furnishes man knowledge of both simultaneously.

  

  William Lane Craig
  • Christian
  • Jesus
  • Pride

• Ricky: You are the strangest man alive.

  

  Karl Pilkington

• Every good citizen should be willing to devote a brief time during some one day in the year, when necessary, to the making up of a listing of his income for taxes to contribute to his Government, not the scriptural tithe, but a small percentage of his net profits.

  

  Cordell Hull
  • Up
  • Time
  • Good

• I think a novel has to be about where you are at a given moment in time. I think it really needs to represent some specific pain you're going through. it's not just a story.

  

  Maria Semple
  • Time
  • Pain