Top 66 Quotes by Maria Semple

I know what it's like to feel snobby; I know what it's like to feel anxiety; I know what it's like to feel like busted because you're crazy.

Both 'Where'd You Go, Bernadette' and my first novel, 'This One is Mine,' are pretty complex on a story level, and fun reads as a result.

I just feel like there's this illicit thrill in reading other people's mail and spying on their lives.

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 survived many a youth hostel bunk room reading Tolstoy by flashlight.

I can only do really serious writing for a couple of hours. And then I always go on a walk. I do a one-to-two-hour walk; I don't go running or hard hiking.

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

I steer clear of any novel that gets billed as a 'meditation.'

Some people, especially literary people, they think, 'I'll write this original script, and it will be full of ideas. I'll submit it, and they'll hire me for television.' That's not the case.

I'm not the comedy police, but you watch a movie, and everyone's laughing, and then you shake it out, and you realize, 'There's no joke there!'