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Maggie Smith

Maggie Smith Quotes

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Famous Maggie Smith Quotes

“When I'm writing, or settling in to write, I have a far-off look. I know this because my friend Wendy captured it in a photograph. In the picture, I'm sitting on a train somewhere in Montana, holding a pen, a notebook in my lap. I'm looking out the window, but there doesn't need to be a window. I'm not looking, I'm listening. I can see it in my face, how closely I'm listening for the voice of the mind. Of my mind.”

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Book:Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life
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“Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.”

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Author:Maggie Smith
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“Creativity isn't just about making art. Making your life is the ultimate creative act. I believe creativity is contagious, and when we put some of that into the world, it gets passed from person to person… I hope you're here because you know that embracing creativity will help you live a richer, more fulfilling, more connected life.”

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Book:Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life
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“When you're restless, you're alive and awake, not sleepwalking in your life or in your creative practice. You value independent thinking of compliance, experimentation, and risk over the sure thing. Restless riders are flexible and nimble; they resist doing the same thing again, and again, even if that thing was successful and well received. They refused to rest on their laurels.”

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Book:Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life
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“Good Bones" Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.”

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Author:Maggie Smith
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“At our wedding, our college creative writing professor read a poem—John Ciardi’s “Most Like an Arch This Marriage.” It’s a poem about imperfection, about being more together than we can be on our own: “Most like an arch—two weaknesses that lean / into a strength. Two fallings become firm.” Being married isn’t being two columns, standing so straight and tall on their own, they never touch. Being married is leaning and being caught, and catching the one who leans toward you.”

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Book:You Could Make This Place Beautiful
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“Betrayal is neat. It absolves you from having to think about your own failures, the ways you didn’t show up for your partner, the harm you might have done. Betrayal is neat because no matter what else happened—if you argued about work or the kids, if you lacked intimacy, if you were disconnected and lonely—it’s as if that person doused everything with lighter fluid and threw a match. Sometimes I wonder: If there had been no postcard, no notebook, would our marriage have survived? I don’t know. That’s the truth.”

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Book:You Could Make This Place Beautiful
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“I had no idea that that was around in the family anywhere. Maybe it never was. But - so they broke the way for me, if you know what I mean. I have no idea where I got the idea from to do what I do. But I think they - Ian and Alistair, my brothers kind of opened a lot of doors for me onto the world - you know, made it seem to be a very, very interesting place.”

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Author:Maggie Smith
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“I find it very difficult to do anything on my own now because people recognize me. This has never happened to me before because I haven't really done television before. But I suppose if you're in people's rooms all the time, I don't know - I was thinking the other night with people like DiCaprio and, you know, those big stars and Cate Blanchett, and you just think how did they exist? It's so difficult. And I think now it's very intrusive because of these cellphones, you know, with cameras.”

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Author:Maggie Smith
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