A Quote by Maria Semple

Novels demand a certain complexity of narrative and scope, so it's necessary for the characters to change.

Maria Semple

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Certain Change Characters Complexity Demand Narrative Necessary Novels Scope

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Maria Semple
American - Novelist
Born: May 21, 1964

I'm very thankful I'm finding my way, and people are excited to bring me into roles that demand a certain complexity.

Nicholas D'Agosto

I don't think the relationship between novels and realities are one to one. Of course novels play different roles. It's essentially just a long narrative form. What you use that long narrative form for can be very different.

Margaret Atwood

Unlike other books or TV shows or sometimes life, my narrative worlds are stripped of implicit moral centers. There is only what you bring. That makes the characters risky in every way and the narrative, a journey of change for the reader. But I make the journey as fun as I can.

Chris Abani

No fundamental social change occurs merely because government acts. It's because civil society, the conscience of a country, begins to rise up and demand - demand - demand change.

Joe Biden

I give people If You Came Softly when they demand proof that novels for teens can be as good as the best novels for adults.

Justine Larbalestier

I give people 'If You Came Softly' when they demand proof that novels for teens can be as good as the best novels for adults.

Justine Larbalestier

I don't have to think too hard to keep my writing within a certain narrative thread. That happens because certain words trigger other associations you have in your mind. So, there is this inherent narrative in the end, whether it is abstract or what.

Luke Temple

It's rather useless to write a gripping narrative with nothing in it but climate change because novels are always about people even if they purport to be about rabbits or robots.

Margaret Atwood

As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive.

Don DeLillo

I can't imagine writing a book without some strong female characters, unless that was a demand of the setting. I actually tend to suspect that in real life, there have always been very strong female characters, but at certain stages of society, they've been asked to cool it.

William Gibson

I especially don't like the graphic violence against women and children often depicted in novels such as 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' and others. I'm not sure if it's being done just to entertain or whether it really is necessary for the characters involved.

Ann Cleeves

If you just read the book, you're taking in the narrative, you're taking in the characters, you're understanding it in a certain way. If you make a movie it's really an act of translation.

James Franco

It’s the ability to bring events and characters to a resolution that draws me to writing, especially writing for children. I don’t want to ever be didactic, but if there’s something I do want to say, it’s that you can bring things around. You can make a change. Adult novels are about letting go. Children’s novels are about getting a grip.

Tim Wynne-Jones

I try to widen the horizons of every child I meet, and part of that is promoting diverse forms, be it graphic novels, stories told in a narrative voice, or more translated books, as well as more diverse writers and more diverse characters.

Malorie Blackman

The purpose of narrative is to present us with complexity and ambiguity.

Scott Turow

A good novel is one that shows the complexity of individuals, and creates enough space for all these characters to have a voice; in this way a novel is called democratic - not that it advocates democracy but that by nature it is so. Empathy lies at the heart of Gatsby, like so many other great novels - the biggest sin is to be blind to others' problems and pains. Not seeing them means denying their existence.

Azar Nafisi

A Quote by Maria Semple

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