People like you must create. If you don’t create, Bernadette, you will become a menace to society.

— Maria Semple

That's right,' she told the girls. 'You are bored. And I'm going to let you in on a little secret about life. You think it's boring now? Well, it only gets more boring. The sooner you learn it's on you to make life interesting, the better off you'll be.

— Maria Semple

That was happiness. Not the framed greatest hits, but the moments in between. At the time, I hadn't pegged them as being particularly happy. But now, looking back at those phantom snapshots, I'm struck by my calm, my ease, the evident comfort with my life. I'm happy in retrospect.

— Maria Semple

The most random things get her way too full of love

— Maria Semple

The penguins that spent most of their time fighting were the ones with no chicks... It's like they're supposed to be taking care of their chicks. But because they don't have any, they have nothing to do with all their energy. So they just pick fights.

— Maria Semple

There's something uniquely exhilarating about puzzling together the truth at the hands of an unreliable narrator.

— Maria Semple

The sky in Seattle is so low, it felt like God had lowered a silk parachute over us. Every feeling I ever knew was up in that sky. Twinkling joyous sunlight; airy, giggle cloud wisps; blinding columns of sun. Orbs of gold, pink. Flesh, utterly cheesy in their luminosity. Gigantic roughly clouds, welcoming, forgiving, repeating infinitely across the horizon as if between mirrors; and slices of rain, pounding wet misery in the distance now, but soon on us, and in another part of the sky, a black stain, rainless.

— Maria Semple

Was it happiness I'd found in my long marriage? Or capitulation? Or is that all happiness is, capitulation?

— Maria Semple

What's this?" She pulled out a card and held it away from her face. "I can't read what it says." I took it from her and read it aloud.1. Berber Bifocal2. Twenty Mile House3. Bee4. Your escape Fourteen miracles to go.

— Maria Semple

When “Here Comes the Sun” started, what happened? No, the sun didn’t come out, but Mom opened up like the sun breaking through the clouds. You know how in the first few notes of that song, there’s something about George’s guitar that’s just so hopeful? It was like when Mom sang, she was full of hope, too. She even got the irregular clapping right during the guitar solo. When the song was over, she paused it.“Oh, Bee,” she said. “This song reminds me of you.” She had tears in her eyes.

— Maria Semple