“I try to begin with a strong grasp of my characters. Even if it's sche...” — Maria Semple Quote

“I try to begin with a strong grasp of my characters. Even if it's schematic, I need it clear in my head who these people are.”

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

“We need to preserve our neighborhoods, our small business, our local economy.”

“I do think the love-gone-wrong songs go over better, only because those melodies and those lyrics have a different feel that you can grasp on if you're a torch singer like myself.”

“'Arcadia' is obviously a play that's got interesting things in it that are perhaps quite hard to grasp.”

“I don't feel that I have any great grasp of technique that I should pass along to people.”