A Quote by Maria Semple

My first novel didn't sell well. It was really painful and humiliating and shocking to me.

Maria Semple

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First Humiliating Me Novel Painful Really Sell Shocking Well

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Maria Semple
American - Novelist
Born: May 21, 1964

Getting slapped in the face with a plastic arm to wake up is not as painful as it might look - probably more humiliating than painful really.

Simone Giertz

Being an actor is such a humiliating experience because you are selling yourself to the public, your face, your personality, and that is humiliating. As you get older, it becomes more humiliating because you've got less to sell.

Katharine Hepburn

When I realised that I had feelings for men as well as women, at first I was worried and frightened, and there was a certain amount of 'Who am I? Am I a criminal?' and so on. It took me a long time to come to terms with myself. Those were painful years - painful then and painful to look back on.

Vikram Seth

I was heavily influenced by my first attempt at a novel. I started a fantasy novel back in high school, and... well... it really sucked. It was a plotless, clichéd mess.

Patrick Rothfuss

I finished my first novel - it was around 300 pages long - when I was 16. Wrote one more before I got out of high school, then wrote the first Lincoln Perry novel when I was 19. It didn't sell, but I liked the character and I knew the world so I tried what was, in my mind, a sequel. Wrote that when I was 20, and that one made it.

Michael Koryta

The first record blew up and sold really well. 'City of Black & White' didn't sell as well, and that's when you wonder, 'Did I peak already?'

Mat Kearney

I need to push myself. I'm not saying that I just want to do anything that's shocking, but when you have that combination of a script that's really beautiful and extremely shocking, it's exciting for me.

Emily Browning

The DNA of the novel - which, if I begin to write nonfiction, I will write about this - is that: the title of the novel is the whole novel. The first line of the novel is the whole novel. The point of view is the whole novel. Every subplot is the whole novel. The verb tense is the whole novel.

Mary Kay Zuravleff

My parents are divorced, and seeing that was really painful for me. Really painful for me. But that's also a big part of why I'm intrigued by the dynamics between people - because I was close to something that fell apart.

Banks

I feel like I've got a novel in me somewhere, but that's something... I was just talking to a buddy of mine about it, who's a writer as well, and he's nearly done with his first novel, and it's taken him 11, 12 years to do it. And I can totally understand; it's a long process.

Corey Taylor

Many writers will get a contract by selling chapters and outlines or something like that. I wrote the entire novel, and when it was all finished, I would give it to my agent and say, 'Well, here's a novel; sell it if you can.' And they would do that, and it was good because I never had anyone looking over my shoulder.

George R. R. Martin

Public downfalls are more painful and humiliating than private ones.

Jane Velez-Mitchell

I was spending all my time at the 'Crimson' - like, 70 hours a week - and I didn't go to class for, like, a year. I failed out of school. I had to leave Harvard, really, halfway through my tenure as the 'Crimson' managing editor. It was this incredibly humiliating and shocking experience.

Parker Conrad

The novel is never really in the first draft. The novel really happens in the revisions.

Tama Janowitz

Andy Harp's RETRIBUTION is a stunner: a blow to the gut and shot of adrenaline. Here is a novel written with authentic authority and bears shocking relevance to the dangers of today. It reminds me of Tom Clancy at his finest. Put this novel on your must-read list-anything by Harp is now on mine.

James Rollins

I remember being interviewed about my first novel, 'The Colour of Memory.' They kept using the expression 'your first novel,' and I said, 'No, I object to that phrase, because this is it for me.'

Geoff Dyer

A Quote by Maria Semple

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