A Quote by Maria Semple

I can pinpoint that as the single happiest moment of my life, because I realized then that Mom would always have my back. It made me feel giant. I raced back down the concrete ramp, faster than I ever had before, so fast I should have fallen, but I didn't fall, because Mom was in the world.
My earliest memory is my mom picking me up after I had fallen down, giving me a big hug and reading me 'Goodnight Moon.' From that moment, to this one, every single memory I have of my mom is that regardless of what was happening in her life, she was always, always there for me.
Alex decided he’d had enough. He put down his knife. “All right,” he said. “You’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t want to work with me. Well, that’s fine. Because I don’t want to work with you either. And for what it’s worth, nobody would ever believe you were my mom because no mom would ever behave like you.” “Alex…,” Carver began. “Forget it! I’m going back to London. And if you’re Mr. Byrne asks why, you can tell him I didn’t like the jelly, so I went home to get some jam.
I came back and decided that I wanted to go to college for acting and got my family on board. My mom, who was a single mom, was a little reticent, but I think after that summer [in the Governor's School], she saw a shift in me and realized that it was something I wanted more than just a hobby.
I've loved Range Rovers. That goes back to when I was a kid. My dad had the first ever Range Rover that was ever made - the first wave back in the '70s - and he had one every year from that moment, and mom has continued to do that. From the moment they started Range Rovers, they've been in my family.
I've been picked up by Big Cass and thrown down the ramp onto metal. Have you ever seen that before in this business? No, no, that's a mighty big fall from the top of the ramp, straight down to the bottom onto concrete. He picked me up over his head and thrown me 14 feet to the ground.
My mom would spend a week in jail. She would spend a day in jail here - a week again, a week and a half, two weeks. My grandmother tells me stories of how because I would be at the house, I wouldn't notice that my mom was gone because she would be at work sometimes. So it was just like time when my mom would be gone and my grandma would tell me she'll be back. And nobody knew where anybody was.
I realized that if you try to be the perfect mom, perfect wife, perfect actress, you start to feel overwhelmed. You shut down. I got that really fast... I was running back and forth from breast-feeding to filming a scene, overextending myself on every level. I realized I have to make priorities, and my family is number one no matter what.
Well, anyway, her death changed our lives for the better, because it brought a kind of awareness, a specific sense of purpose and appreciation we hadn't had before. Would I trade that in order to have her back? In a fraction of a millisecond. But I won't ever have her back. So I have taken this, as her great gift to us. But. Do I block her out? Never. Do I think of her? Always. In some part of my brain, I think of her every single moment of every single day.
I lived in South Africa until I was 11 when we first immigrated. My mom had sent me back there when I was 14 for summer vacation. I wasn't doing very well in school, my grades were slipping. I called my mom one day and told her that I wasn't coming back. I ended up staying there until I was 17 before coming back to North America.
They always say, doing what I do for a living, write what you know and then people will respond to it. I luckily had a very charming, lovable mom who I think everybody could see bits and pieces of their mom in. All I had to do was write a character that was like my mom, and it made my life easier.
Being sick allows you to check out of life. Getting well again means you have to check back in. It is absolutely crucial that you feel ready to check back into life because you feel as though something has changed from the time before you were sick. Whatever it was that made you feel insecure, less than, or pressured to live in a way that was uncomfortable to you has to change before you want to go back there and start over.
Now I'm where I want to be and who I want to be and doing what I always said I would and yet I feel I haven't won at all. Running for my life and never looking back in case there's someone right behind me shoot me down and say he always knew I'd fall. When the crazy wheel slows down where will I be? Back where I started.
I think my confidence and competitiveness - that will - comes from my mother. I always knew my mom loved me, and she always made me feel like I was - I don't want to say 'special' - but that I was capable of doing things. Before I ever shot a basketball or before I ever threw a baseball, I had confidence, and that was from my mother.
My mom would give me a piece to play, but I wouldn't do any theory because when it came time to do it I would sneak back upstairs and watch TV. So, I had these kind of nonchalant lessons for years, then it just started soaking in.
We were sitting there on the couch together, and he pushed himself up to go but then fell back down onto the couch and sneaked a kiss onto my cheek. “Augustus!” I said. “Friendly,” he said. He pushed himself up again and really stood this time, then took two steps over to my mom and said, “Always a pleasure to see you,” and my mom opened her arms to hug him, whereupon Augustus leaned in and kissed my mom on the cheek. He turned back to me. “See?” he asked.
The violin has always been important for me. My mom was a single mom and we moved around a lot, and so the violin was always the one constant I had. I always feel better when I had my violin. Playing it is cathartic.
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