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" In my high-minded and naive way, I believed the only books worth reading were the classics. "
Maria Semple
Worth
Way
Reading
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" An artist must create. If she doesn't, she will become a menace to society. "
Maria Semple
She
Will
Artist
" I think that everyone in Seattle, their daily existence, is enriched by all the charitable giving that is courtesy of Microsoft. "
Maria Semple
Existence
Daily
Seattle
" We need to preserve our neighborhoods, our small business, our local economy. "
Maria Semple
Need
Small Business
Small
" 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 through. it's not just a story. "
Maria Semple
You
Pain
Moment
" In a lot of ways, TV writing taught me how to be a good storyteller. I learned about dialogue, scenes, moving the plot forward. "
Maria Semple
Plot
Good
Forward
" Ruthless concern with story is what I learned in television. "
Maria Semple
Story
Television
Concern
" 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. "
Maria Semple
Ideas
Control
Work
" 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. "
Maria Semple
Imagination
Reality
Book
" My strength as a TV writer was my total lack of interest in television. "
Maria Semple
Interest
Writer
Strength
" 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 me the freedom to intricately plot my story, knowing it will at least hold up on a timeline. "
Maria Semple
Story
Knowing
Calendar
" Much of the time in the writer's room is spent working on story, and I was always challenging myself to make it more interesting, tighter and more surprising: to come at it sideways in a way that the audience wasn't expecting. "
Maria Semple
Time
Myself
Interesting
" In TV writing, I felt like Gulliver being tied down by the Lilliputians. There's so much more freedom in fiction writing. "
Maria Semple
Writing
Down
Like
" I think that's the most important job of a novelist - to bring authority to their writing. "
Maria Semple
Think
Job
Bring
" And dialogue, I'm good at it, and it's because it's the only thing you have to work with in TV writing. "
Maria Semple
Dialogue
You
Writing
" I survived many a youth hostel bunk room reading Tolstoy by flashlight. "
Maria Semple
Bunk
Youth
Room
" 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 then I always go on a walk, I do a one-to-two-hour walk; I don't go running or hard hiking. "
Maria Semple
Home
Race
School
" Creating art is painful. It takes time, practice, and the courage to stand alone. "
Maria Semple
Practice
Time
Alone
" 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, working out the problems according to my own rhythms and being able to nap. That's a big one, the napping on demand! "
Maria Semple
Alone
Nap
Problems
" I just feel like there's this illicit thrill in reading other people's mail and spying on their lives. "
Maria Semple
Like
Mail
People
" My father was a screenwriter, and I kind of grew up in that world. "
Maria Semple
World
Kind
Grew
" 'Mad About You' fit my sensibility the most of any show that I worked on, and as a result, it was really fun. It felt like a very natural fit. "
Maria Semple
Result
Mad
Natural
" 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. "
Maria Semple
Writing
Strong
Character
" There's a happiness that comes from writing that I won't live without. "
Maria Semple
Without
Happiness
Live
" My first novel didn't sell well. It was really painful and humiliating and shocking to me. "
Maria Semple
Me
First
Painful