Quote

Hovering over me was the Chihuly chandelier. Chihulys are the pigeons of Seattle. They're everywhere and even if they don't get in your way, you can't help but build up a kind of antipathy toward them.

Maria Semple

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Maria Semple
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: May 21
Novelist
Screenwriter
Television Producer
Writer
Santa Monica
California
Maria Keogh Semple
Antipathy
Helping
Hovering
Even
Pigeons
Kind
Seattle
Way
Everywhere
Build
Toward
Chandelier
Chandeliers
Help

More quotes by Maria Semple

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The sooner you learn it's on you to make life interesting, the better off you'll be.
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I want find a part of myself that I feel shame about, or that I feel really scared of exposing to the world.
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My day is not that fun-filled or that filled usually with complications.
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You come out into the world after a season of TV and you're just swearing and saying mean things to people and they're looking at you like, Who are you? And oh yeah, you think, I have to reacclimate to the way people genuinely treat each other.
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I spend my whole life trying to put up a front to prevent people from seeing certain parts of me. Weirdly, when I go to write, I feel like I have to expose it, almost compulsively.
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What's this? She pulled out a card and held it away from her face. I can't read what it says. I took it from her and read it aloud. 1. Beeber Bifocal 2. Twenty Mile House 3. Bee 4. Your escape Fourteen miracles to go.
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I keep an elaborate calendar for my characters detailing on which dates everything happens. Im constantly revising this as I go along. It gives me the freedom to intricately plot my story, knowing it will at least hold up on a timeline.
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One of the main reasons I don't like leaving the house is because I might find myself face to face with a Canadian.
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Maggie Shipstead's prose is so graceful and muscular, so dazzling, so sure-handed and fearless, that at times I had to remind myself to breathe. Astonish Me is a treasure of small surprises.
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Your mission statement says Galer Street is based on global connectitude. (You people don't just think outside the box, you think outside the dictionary!)
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I love the camaraderie of a writers' room.
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My way of looking at the world is that if it is true, it is funny and it is dark. No matter how dark it is, I just think it is funny. I can't help it.
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I'd say I never considered myself a great architect. I'm more of a creative problem solver with good taste and a soft spot for logistical nightmares.
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I think thats the most important job of a novelist - to bring authority to their writing.
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I felt so full of love for everything. But at the same time, I felt so hung out there to dry, like nobody could ever understand. I felt so alone in this world, and so loved at the same time.
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Mad About You fit my sensibility the most of any show that I worked on, and as a result, it was really fun. It felt like a very natural fit.
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Unfortunately Seattle is my muse, for the better or worse of Seattle - I'm not sure.
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I'm not too good when exposed to people
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I think because I try to keep things as real as I can, or I try to start from a place of reality, I almost don't have the imagination to write a book that's not set where I am.
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Being in writers' rooms turns you feral. You are swearing, you are going to very dark, mean places. You start out in the room with all these smart people, and you're all well-read and well-educated and the humor is really erudite. And then over the course of the year, after the production schedule grinds you down, it is just so mean and stupid.
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