I think a novel has to be about where you are at a given moment in time. I think it really needs… — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
I never understood the concept of a fluffy summer read. For me, summer reading means beaches, long train rides and layovers in… — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
My first novel didn't sell well. It was really painful and humiliating and shocking to me. — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
My talent isn't so much in traditional research as in finding really smart people and badgering them with questions. — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
'Mad About You' fit my sensibility the most of any show that I worked on, and as a result, it was really… — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
On my walks, that's when the good ideas come. The kind of hard, gritty work is when you're sitting at the computer… — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
I drop my kid off at school and then race home, and it's a very limited time. I can only do really… — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
“The drivers here are horrible. And by horrible, I mean they don't realize I have someplace to be.” — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
“Just because it's complicated, just because you think you can't ever know everything about another person, it doesn't mean you can't try.” — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
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… — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
“Here’s something about Mom: she’s bad with annoyances, but great in a crisis. If a waiter doesn’t refill her water after she’s asked three… — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
“Parking in Seattle is an eight-step process. Step one, find a place to park (gooood luuuuck!). Step two, back into the angled parking space… — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
“Eleanor's heart giggled with mad abundance: so much to share, so much goodwill, so many notes to compare, so many ways to help and… — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
After decades spent in rewrite rooms surrounded by other shouting writers, I discovered that I work best alone. I like being in charge of… — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
“Ten years ago I saw a documentary on the siege of that Moscow theater. After just forty-eight hours of the terrorists confining the hostages… — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
When I'm sitting at my computer writing, I really have this fiendish smile on my face. I am not thinking about the past or… — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
“Every single iceberg filled me with feelings of sadness and wonder. Not thoughts of sadness and wonder, mind you, because thoughts require a thinker,… — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
“The sight of Elgie flat on the slimy dock, groaning "My wife, my wife", with a gun pointed at him, and me jumping up… — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
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.… — Maria Semple Copy Share Image
