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20 quotes by Maria Semple

Maria Keogh Semple (born May 21, 1964) is an American novelist and screenwriter. She is the author of This One Is Mine (2008) and Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2012). Her television credits include Beverly Hills, 90210, Mad About You, Saturday Night Live, Arrested Development, Suddenly Susan and Ellen.
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I keep an elaborate calendar for my characters detailing on which dates everything happens. I'm constantly revising this as I go along. It gives... →

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I drop my kid off at school and then race home, and it's a very limited time. I can only do really serious writing for a couple of hours. And... →

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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... →

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I think that's the most important job of a novelist - to bring authority to their writing.

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My talent isn't so much in traditional research as in finding really smart people and badgering them with questions.

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My strength as a TV writer was my total lack of interest in television.

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I think a novel has to be about where you are at a given moment in time. I think it really needs to represent some specific pain you're going... →

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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... →

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

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

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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.

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

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

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