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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.

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
Helping
True
Matter
Way
Think
Looking
Thinking
Dark
World
Help
Funny

More quotes by Maria Semple

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You bet your bindi that’s how big I want it.
Maria Semple
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I think one of the good things about writing novels is that you always start from scratch.
Maria Semple
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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.
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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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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Unfortunately Seattle is my muse, for the better or worse of Seattle - I'm not sure.
Maria Semple
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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)
Maria Semple
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I love the camaraderie of a writers' room.
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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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
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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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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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My day is not that fun-filled or that filled usually with complications.
Maria Semple
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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.
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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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.
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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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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The sooner you learn it's on you to make life interesting, the better off you'll be.
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