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
Everywhere
Build
Toward
Chandelier
Help
Chandeliers
Helping
Antipathy
Even
Hovering
Kind
Pigeons
Way
Seattle

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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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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 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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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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When your eyes are softly focused on the horizon for sustained periods, your brain releases endorphins. It's the same as a runner's high. These days, we spend our lives staring at screens twelve inches in front of us.
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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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Breezy, sophisticated, hilarious, rude and aching with sweetness: LOVE, NINA might be the most charming book I've ever read.
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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 can pinpoint that as the single happiest moment of my life, because I realized then that Mom would always have my back. It made me feel giant. I raced back down the concrete ramp, faster than I ever had before, so fast I should have fallen, but I didn't fall, because Mom was in the world.
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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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I'm not too good when exposed to people
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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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I got a huge knot in my stomach because if Antarctica could talk, it would be saying only one thing: you don't belong here. (277)
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Maybe that’s what religion is, hurling yourself off a cliff and trusting that something bigger will take care of you and carry you to the right place.
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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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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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We were like the Beatles, Dad.' 'I know you think that, sweetie' 'Seriously. Mom is John, you're Paul, I'm George, and Ice Cream is Ringo.' 'Ice Cream,' I said. 'Resentful of the past, fearful of the future...everytime we saw Ice Cream sitting there with her mouth open, we'd say, Poor Ice Cream, resentful of the past, fearful of the future.
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Unfortunately Seattle is my muse, for the better or worse of Seattle - I'm not sure.
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You bet your bindi that’s how big I want it.
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