Quote

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.

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
Stories
Gives
Calendar
Character
Hold
Elaborate
Everything
Least
Calendars
Giving
Knowing
Dates
Detailing
Story
Plot
Intricately
Freedom
Constantly
Timeline
Keep
Characters
Timelines
Happens
Along
Revising

More quotes by Maria Semple

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Its like a hypnotist put everyone from Seattle into a collective trance. You are getting sleepy, when you wake up you will want to live only in a Craftsman house, the year won't matter to you, all that will matter is that the walls will be thick, the windows tiny, the rooms dark, the ceilings low, and it will be poorly situated on the lot.
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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 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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I think thats the most important job of a novelist - to bring authority to their writing.
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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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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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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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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 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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I'm not too good when exposed to people
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After decades spent in rewrite rooms surrounded by other shouting writers, I discovered that I work best alone. I like being in charge of my time, working out the problems according to my own rhythms and being able to nap. That's a big one, the napping on demand!
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You bet your bindi that’s how big I want it.
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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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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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My day is not that fun-filled or that filled usually with complications.
Maria Semple
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Unfortunately Seattle is my muse, for the better or worse of Seattle - I'm not sure.
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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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I'll see something awful on the street and I'll come home and say to my boyfriend, I just saw the funniest thing on the street. It's a stance. It's the way I was born, or the way I was damaged.
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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.
Maria Semple
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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