Maria Semple Quotes
I can only do really serious writing for a couple of hours. And then I always go on a walk. I do a one-to-two-hour walk; I don't go running or hard hiking.
Quotes to Explore
-
I'm just a black hole for stuff. No one should ever hand me anything, because I get so easily distracted. I'll be like, 'Oh, look, something shiny!' I'm glad I never learned how to drive. I would be really dangerous.
-
Nothing is unfilmable.
-
On my mother's side, I'm English, so that's where the freckles come from. On my father's side, I'm German, and he has the fantastic olive hues... I was given mum's skin, whereas my brothers and sisters were given my dad's skin. I do tan up quite well, but it takes me a bit longer.
-
I shall produce nothing that will offend the proprieties, whether applied to children or grownups. My pictures are turned out with clean hands and, therefore, with a clear conscience which, like virtue, is its own reward.
-
Physical bravery is an animal instinct; moral bravery is much higher and truer courage.
-
I've had the experience of having a book praised but then it doesn't sell. Or not praised but then it sells.
-
I do not suppose I shall be remembered for anything. But I don't think about my work in those terms. It is just as vulgar to work for the sake of posterity as to work for the sake of money.
-
The Japanese version comes with a translation, but that's different from the lyrics, so people could look things up and find a translation of their own if they're interested.
-
It's really hard for kids nowadays: you can get a decent education, but there are no jobs out there. You worry about how they are ever going to afford to live anywhere.
-
I do not support a North American Union. I disagree fundamentally with that, and I think the United States should be governing itself and not being governed by multilateral unions, the United Nations.
-
You don't have to paint your walls lime green just to try to have your home feel decorated. If you're a classic dresser or preppy dresser or a modern dresser, you wear a lot of black - whatever it is - your home should reflect that as well.
-
Though social eugenics was discredited long ago, we still often think of the genome in quasi-eugenic terms. When we read about the latest discovery of a link between a gene and a disease, we imagine that we've learned the cause of the disease, and we may even think we'll get a cure by fixing the gene.
-
Lets be clear, Dolly Parton is a rapper. Somewhere before all the country, I don't know what happens up there in the mountains when you're growing up, but she has been spitting rhymes for a very long time - 50 years I'd say.
-
Newspapers are busily experimenting with different models. Traditionally, and I suspect in hindsight very mistakenly, online news was free. And once given free access readers felt it was their entitlement.
-
If you're losing, just be a man; be a man and lose as a man.
-
Were women meant to do everything - work and have babies?
-
Every time you treat an Iraqi disrespectfully, you are working for the enemy.
-
I want to be an activist professor.
-
Private education can give you confidence, which is marvellous; a sense of entitlement isn't.
-
To grow up knowing you're loved is astounding. It's a huge gift to a child.
-
My three husbands were afraid of me. I am a very powerful woman.
-
I love coloring books. I keep some by my bed.
-
I'm an environmentalist; I recycle.
-
I can only do really serious writing for a couple of hours. And then I always go on a walk. I do a one-to-two-hour walk; I don't go running or hard hiking.
