Maria Semple Quotes

In a lot of ways, TV writing taught me how to be a good storyteller. I learned about dialogue, scenes, moving the plot forward.

Maria Semple

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Quotes to Explore

• I wish the world could better know this country for what it really is. Not just a greedy economic giant crouching fearfully behind its walls, not just a panoplied warrior nervously fingering his weapons. What is this, is a people who gather together in thousands to give a people's government its essential vitality.

  

  Ralph Bellamy
  • People
  • World
  • Country

• The reforms proposed by the Patent Reform Act of 2007 are precisely the type of congressional action needed. The Act will remove obstacles to growth and restore balance to the patent system.

  

  Viet D. Dinh
  • Action
  • Growth
  • Balance

• I got drunk when I was five. Everybody gets drunk before they're 21.

  

  Fiona Apple
  • Drunk
  • Before
  • Got

• I don't want to say anything because I know I am unable to protect you from the harm that I see.

  

  Camille Claudel
  • Protect
  • Harm

• I don't believe in strong-arming people.

  

  Zachary Levi
  • People
  • Believe
  • Strong

• At my father's request I took up the study of law at the University of Zurich In 1863.

  

  Carl Spitteler
  • Up
  • Father
  • Law

• Look. Art knows no prejudice, art knows no boundaries, art doesn't really have judgement in it's purest form. So just go, just go.

  

  K. D. Lang
  • Art
  • Look
  • Prejudice

• All of a sudden I discovered that I'm allergic to caviar. It was the perfect metaphor for my life. When I was only able to afford bad caviar, I could certainly eat my fill of it.

  

  Larry David
  • Life
  • Bad
  • Perfect

• Making music is fantastic.

  

  Warren Cuccurullo Duran Duran
  • Music
  • Making
  • Fantastic

• After the events of the 20th century, God, quite reasonably, left Europe. But He's still here in the United States.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • God
  • Events
  • Europe

• When I did 'Hot Fuzz,' I tried to get Barbara Steele in the movie, but I was told she had retired.

  

  Edgar Wright
  • Movie
  • Hot Fuzz
  • Barbara Steele

• I still enjoy doing the things I've always done, like going to a monthly dance party at a club downtown.

  

  Tamara Tunie
  • Done
  • Party
  • Dance

• You're always going to have people that are naysayers, that don't believe in your talent, that don't believe that you have any kind of longevity.

  

  Vanessa Williams
  • People
  • Believe
  • Talent

• If you take shortcuts, you get cut short.

  

  Gary Busey
  • You
  • Short
  • Take

• For gay people, we learned about our lives in secrecy and a lot of fear.

  

  Ira Sachs
  • People
  • Fear
  • Gay

• At the end of OK Computer we were playing big, big arenas and it wasn't right. You can do those things occasionally but at the time it didn't feel right.

  

  Ed O'Brien Radiohead
  • Time
  • Feel
  • End

• Whatever I have done so far has led me to 'Kaabil.' It is a big opportunity for me to establish myself more commercially. It is a huge platform.

  

  Yami Gautam
  • Opportunity
  • Me
  • Platform

• Suppose that 'Unsolved Mysteries' called you with news of a long-lost identical twin. Would that suddenly make you less of a person, less of an individual? It is hard to see how. So, why would a clone be different? Your clone would be raised in a different era by different people - like the lost identical twin, only younger than you.

  

  Nathan Myhrvold
  • People
  • Different
  • Long

• I have always said that I want to finish my career with the Dolphins and this put me closer to that goal. I have been fortunate to break many personal records, but my overiding goal is to win a Super Bowl here in Miami.

  

  Dan Marino
  • Career
  • Goal
  • Win

• Over the past 50 years we got versions of X-ray specs and space vacations, and even death rays. But the X-ray specs don't fit on your face - they're big things that screen your luggage for guns. Space vacations are real, but they cost $20 million. We have death rays, but you have to be a triple Ph.D. to play with them.

  

  Daniel H. Wilson
  • Real
  • Death
  • Past

• Be real. Try to do what you say, say what you mean, and be what you seem.

  

  Marian Wright Edelman
  • Real
  • Mean
  • Say

• I know that sometimes we, as Americans, we reach outside of our means, and every once in a while we like to 'police the world,' but I think we do a lot of good as well.

  

  M. Shadows
  • World
  • Good
  • Police

• If I basically view criticism as sort of an interesting form of writing about oneself, an interesting form of autobiography, then I don't feel any pressure to have any kind of authoritative, universal voice. That kind of thing has never interested me.

  

  Chuck Klosterman
  • Writing
  • Interesting
  • Voice

• In a lot of ways, TV writing taught me how to be a good storyteller. I learned about dialogue, scenes, moving the plot forward.

  

  Maria Semple
  • Good
  • Writing
  • Moving