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… — 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
“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
