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
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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.
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Nothing is unfilmable.
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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.
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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.
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Physical bravery is an animal instinct; moral bravery is much higher and truer courage.
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I've had the experience of having a book praised but then it doesn't sell. Or not praised but then it sells.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The Hungarian ministry begged the king earnestly to issue orders to all troops and commanders of fortresses in Hungary, enjoining fidelity to the Constitution, and obedience to the ministers of Hungary.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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If you're losing, just be a man; be a man and lose as a man.
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Were women meant to do everything - work and have babies?
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Every time you treat an Iraqi disrespectfully, you are working for the enemy.
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It vexes me when they would constrain science by the authority of the Scriptures, and yet do not consider themselves bound to answer reason and experiment.
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This first stage of the life of the whole race is savagery, raw nature:… a condition in which man enjoys the most exquisite goods, equality and freedom, in full abundance, and would also enjoy them forever, if he would follow the hint of nature and understand the art of not abusing his powers and preventing the outbreak of his excessive passions.
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The vanity of men, a constant insult to women, is also the ground for the implicit feminine claim of superior sensitivity and morality.
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I consider writing practice a true Zen practice because it all comes back at you. You can't fool anyone because it's on the page.
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In my ideal writing environment, I'd be surrounded by nice visual art in a room with a window and high ceilings. The window would have to give me natural light.
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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.
