Maria Semple Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“An artist must create. If she doesn't, she will become a menace to society.”

“And dialogue, I'm good at it, and it's because it's the only thing you have to work with in TV writing.”

“I learned that comedy is born out of strong characters. I won't begin writing a character until I have a clear take on them.”

“In a lot of ways, TV writing taught me how to be a good storyteller. I learned about dialogue, scenes, moving the plot forward.”

“In TV writing, I felt like Gulliver being tied down by the Lilliputians. There's so much more freedom in fiction writing.”

“My father was a screenwriter, and I kind of grew up in that world.”

“There's a happiness that comes from writing that I won't live without.”

“I never understood the concept of a fluffy summer read. For me, summer reading means beaches, long train rides and layovers in foreign airports. All of which call for escaping into really long books.”

“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.”

“On my walks, that's when the good ideas come. The kind of hard, gritty work is when you're sitting at the computer and it's kind of intense and you're kind of in super control of it - the walks are when you let go. That's when the really big breakthroughs come in, and it's very strange.”