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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.

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
Life
Almost
Weirdly
Like
Write
Expose
People
Certain
Prevent
Whole
Parts
Feel
Fronts
Feels
Front
Writing
Spend
Trying
Seeing
Compulsively

More quotes by Maria Semple

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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.
Maria Semple
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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!
Maria Semple
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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.
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
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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.
Maria Semple
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My day is not that fun-filled or that filled usually with complications.
Maria Semple
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Breezy, sophisticated, hilarious, rude and aching with sweetness: LOVE, NINA might be the most charming book I've ever read.
Maria Semple
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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.
Maria Semple
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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.
Maria Semple
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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.
Maria Semple
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You bet your bindi that’s how big I want it.
Maria Semple
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I love the camaraderie of a writers' room.
Maria Semple
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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.
Maria Semple
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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!)
Maria Semple
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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.
Maria Semple
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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.
Maria Semple
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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.
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.
Maria Semple
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The sooner you learn it's on you to make life interesting, the better off you'll be.
Maria Semple
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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.
Maria Semple