YouSaid · the spoken record

Maria Semple

lines on the record: 54
first: 2026-04-14
most recent: 2026-04-14
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Well, all I want is just a good time. You know, I feel like I just want the page to be turned and for people to get to the end of the book. I feel like if they get, and I love how quickly everyone's getting together, a day and a half. Yeah, it's amazing. So I feel like, wow, I did it. And so that's really what I want to do. You know, I'm not really trying to expose people to stoicism, but apparently I have. And they like it. So that's kind of amazing. That really was never my intention. But I think want to show people a good time and maybe laugh along the way and feel along the way. And learn to love better. I think ultimately this is a book about love and loving better. And so I think that that really should be what art does, you know, is make you want to love better.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, right. And I just love that. And that's what Adora thinks about. Actually, I think Thoreau said that about nature and philosophy together, that it was philosophy and nature when he was in that mindset, in nature reading philosophy. He said, my Thanksgiving is perpetual.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Intend to be a good person and to be wise and to be modest and to do your work and to keep your head down, then good things will happen to you. Then I think faith will take care of you.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's so true because I have anxiety. I think a lot of people struggle with that. And that if you're in a situation often, you know, I'm really the queen of hearing what I want to hear and not what somebody said. And so I really try to just take out all of, you know, what I want to have happen in the interaction and just try to say what is actually happening so that when I think about it later, I have the facts and not, and I'm not basing it on some fantasy that I wish.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In the happiness and being so happy, like right now, I'm very much in happiness, Oprah. Thank you very much, deeply in happiness.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I love that. I don't know how I came up with that, but I just realized that to blithely go through being happy is not enough. Life is short and you have to just be so.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But if you really think about it, if you're hoping you want something Yeah, it is not that's out of your control. And so it does kind of put you in a sense of fear. Yes. That you really want the thing to be happening. So I think that's just like a very interesting insight, and I think it's true.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it's so interesting. I mean, I find it so fascinating because you don't think of it as a bad thing. Yes. I've never seen it cast as a bad thing, like as something that makes you afraid.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because again, I wanted Adora to be really happy being single. I think that that really was something where, and perhaps she's in denial a little bit about it. And I think that it showed her kind of resilience, and I think it's part of the coven is that when she prides herself on perceiving reality correctly. And part of that perception of correct reality in her mind is that in her late 50s, you know, all the age-appropriate men are dating women in their 30s and 40s, and they're not available and they're just not around. And it most likely will never happen. And so instead of bemoaning that fate or feeling like a big victim or getting angry at men, why not just make the best of it and put the coven together and devot yourself? To philosophy and her daughter. And so that's the reason why I was kind of so harsh about that.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A really wonderful part of life. Like, why are you, why would anybody want to rid themselves of that? And so I was really trying to bring that kind of alternate perspective into the Stoic practice through Viv and Adora.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Leave room for the experience of being a mother. And in fact, one of my favorite lines in the book is a line that's not even mine. It came to me from my editor Lindsay Zagnet. And it's when Adora has had a really hard day, has gone through all the stoic possibilities to make her better. And it doesn't work. And she gets into bed with Viv, who's asleep, and she hugs her daughter. And she says, the Stoics made some good points, but none of them were mothers. And it's just like the love of the child is what she needs and the thought that like you would be okay losing your child. I mean, because that's what the Stoics say is you should just like not be attached to anything. And like the attachment that a mother has to a child is.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, very much so. That's very astute. Thank you for that question. Is that one of the hardest things for me in writing the book is I really did want Adora to be as harsh as possible, to Viv in the beginning without you disliking her. You know, and I was kind of trying to push it because I knew where it would go. You know, this kind of goes to the title a little bit is go gentle, is that with Stoicism you go hard on yourself and easy on other people. And I feel like there's this hole in it, which is Adora's relationship with Viv that she just can't apply that to her own daughter. And I think the reason why I did that is because Stoicism is very male. It's like very bro culture now, you know, and even though I like it and I'm into it, I feel like it doesn't really...”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, so I have a daughter who's older than Viv now, but she was once a teenager. And Viv is definitely an exaggerated version of my daughter. And it's funny because when I gave the book to my daughter to read, I said to her, you know, just make it past the first 20 pages because Adora's really harsh on Viv. She really thinks she has terrible character and is very open about it. And if you read the book, you're going to think I just really don't like you. Don't like anything about you. But don't worry, there's method to my madness. Viv is going to come to life and kind of steal the book at the end. And she does. And everybody ends up loving Viv. And so if you're asking me if my daughter has said that I'm an old joyless person who's just trying to take away her happy youth, yes, words to that effect. My household”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I didn't even, again, know the concept of good personal character. And so I was raised Catholic, but I was never taught character. I was taught to be kind of afraid of nuns and to lie in confession. So you didn't have too many Hail Marys. But I never really had like an ethical training system. And so I really then kind of reverse engineered the young Adora according to that, you know, and it just made it very interesting to me.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It certainly was present day, Adora is where I started, and it's a very good question because, you know, I know every people start very different ways, but it was definitely the present-day Adora. And the more I kind of built her out, I started just wondering why does she need stoicism so badly? What happened to her that she needed to just kind of put this entirely ancient operating system into herself to replace what she had had before and I just started thinking about what that was. And I'm very interested in character. I mean, personal character. And that's what Stoicism really is about, is like strong personal character. And when I think about that, I just feel a lot of shame about my past. And I feel like I didn't have good character for many years.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And unhappiness. And so I really wanted to write Adora as a young person in that way so we could contrast her with the Adora we meet in the beginning of the book. Yes, and then we see how she got there and also how kind of hard won her serenity is so that when it starts to get challenged by Digby, you know, we were like, don't.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've certainly had those thoughts myself. I'm sorry to say. I mean, the hundreds of hours that I've wasted, you know, fantasizing about how my life would change if I was 20 pounds lighter, all the doors that would magically open to me now loved and successful I would be. I'm writing that from Adora's point of view in the flashback when she's younger. That's right. And that's really my mindset, just yo-yo dieting, just self-hatred, hating my body, thinking that if I was thin, my life would magically change. And I really wanted to write a character from someone who had no strong sense of self. And to turn over your sense of well-being and hope and anything good to other people loving you because you're thin is just a prescription for kind of insane.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. Well, I'll tell you what I can do, and it helps because to me it really engages my imagination. Is if something doesn't go well, or the way I want it to and the way that I'm hoping it will, I can very quickly get into the mindset of it's not the worst thing in the world. Like there's a lot of other things I can do. And then there's a Seneca quote in the book that is kind of a clunky quote, but it says, nothing. Can happen to you that bars you from something that's not even bigger? It's basically whatever you feel like you've been prevented from, there's always so much more that you're not prevented from. And so I kind of switch into this imaginative.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yet, don't just accept it, but love it. And the idea is that even negative events, things that you might perceive as being negative, you can use to make yourself a better person. You can then use that to work on your patients, to work on your courage, to work on any of the virtues, that everything is fodder for being a better, more resilient person.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and of things to turn out the way you exactly want them to turn out. And so if that's the case, then you actually can go to... Feeling good about that day. Like you've done what you needed to do that day and you're not just disappointed or frustrated. And so I do think that it's really helpful and it helps me just reframe. Just things that happen or things I'm going through.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I have a stoic practice where every morning I sit down in a chair on my old philosophy chair and I write out the four Stoic virtues which are wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. And I write them out and then I pick virtues to work on that day. Like, for instance, if it's a writing day. Ah, focus is a subset of temperance. And so I really think that my job here is to focus. It's not to write a bestseller. It's not to make a lot of money with a book. Like I just have one job here. It's to focus. That's 100% of my control. You know, I'm not wanting, basically, I try to desire only what's 100% of my control. And that I feel like if that's your goal for the day is not to want anything bigger, not to want outcomes, not to want to change people, not to...”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Good question. Well, New York, as you know, it's a hard place to live. We're all going through it. Any help we can get, I think that we will all take. And so, yes, Stoicism can help that. And I do believe, just because I have the personal experience, that I think that Stoicism can help with just going through your day on a small level with career stuff, with relationship stuff. It just kind of reframes. It helps you reframe and find like very helpful perspectives on situations that make you not kind of go crazy with obsessive thoughts and regret and disappointment. It is a structure that kind of inoculates you against all of that. And so I think that's good for any age because life is going to come after you.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right, that you've got something, and it was really like my voice, I think, that I learned to kind of trust my voice. And I think that's really what my career has been is just kind of leaning in deeper and deeper to my voice and just trusting that if I like it, they'll like it and not trying to make it any more complicated than that.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Who had done it? Yes, who had done it and who just gave me that encouragement. And so I bought a book on fiction writing and kind of learned how to do that. And I just really was concerned that I would be a bad writer, you know, and that I didn't know that I could be a good writer. And so I just kind of did sentence by sentence. And in my first novel, this one is mine. There are no similes or”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A totally on the pedestal. On the pedestal. Yes, and I'd never written a word of prose in my life. And he said to me, novels are just your personality and your interests. And you have a good personality and you have a lot of interests. And I would read your novel. And that's really all it took for me was kind of getting permission from a relative stranger to even try being a novelist. And so I just set out, I bought a book.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And working on scenes. And I think I really kind of developed a story muscle while I was working in TV. It wasn't until I met a novelist whose books I really liked and I talked to him all about how cool it was that he was writing books and what was it like that was so special and he said to me why don't you write a novel if you like them so much and I just thought that novels were for other people to write they were for kind of more serious or dignified people to write that there was like no access for me to become a fiction writer”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It wasn't that hard because while I was writing for TV, even though I had a 20 year career, worked on a lot of shows and was always kind of getting hired, I never felt like I was that great at the job. I was good at story, but I was never really good at jokes. And there always felt like there was something wrong with me as a comedy writer. I felt like I was kind of wearing my shoes on the wrong feet or something. And I certainly never watched TV. I wouldn't go home and watch TV. I never watched it. Instead, I would go home and read books. I was an English major in college. I still self-identify as an English major. And that's really what I loved was books. And so it, even though TB taught me some really amazing things and I loved my time there in many ways. And they really teach you story in TV. That's your job is to just be breaking stories.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The coven. I know it's kind of a problem with the book, but I personally love the coven. And I will say on the floor of my building, two apartments are coming up for sale and there's a long list of my friends who now will hear about it for the first time and will say, wait, I need to be in those apartments. So the coven will probably become a reality.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Good question, Jay. I don't think it's a plan B. I think it's a plan A. And things happens to adore and she finds love. But I think that what, first of all, the covenant is still going strong on the seventh floor. So the covenant still exists in the world of the book. It's happening. And I think it's always there for her. I will say Who knows if this thing will dig B will work out or not, but I think that in the course of the book Adora, I think has learned to love herself in a way where she doesn't really need a man, you know. And I think that that's really what I was where I was hoping that she to lead her. Yeah, exactly. It's not like, oh, this is the solution to all my problems. Like I actually think the coven is the solution to her problems. And I don't mean to sell out.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so she's very happy with everything about the covenant. It really captures her imagination. And so I felt like this was a really good way to dramatize how a single woman would be happy. And I will say I didn't invent it. My women friends and I are constantly talking about it and you're always reading these articles. I feel like the New York Times, they just come fast and furious, these articles about women making compounds, you know, where they want to.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, that really was kind of a narrative. Happy being single, like genuinely happy. And I felt like if I just had her sit there and say, I'm so happy being single, I love being single, maybe we wouldn't believe her. It would be maybe protesting too much. So I thought, how do I put that into action with just her full imagination and energy and ingenuity? And so she kind of creates this thing on the floor of her building where all of her friends kind of move in.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And to me, that seemed like kind of funny. But then you bring desire into her life, and then what does she do with that? And that seemed like a comic premise to me.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But the Stoicism, and so to me, it's like this intellectual and wonderful woman who really has it figured out. But the kind of deal with the devil is that she has decided she doesn't want anything in her life.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, in Go Gentle, Adora's emotional truth is that it's a woman who has always struggled with desire that when she's young, she's just burning with desire, but she has like bad values and she's chasing these bad values that get her into so much trouble. And so then she kind of maybe overcorrects and turns off all the desire.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I normally don't start writing a character until I come up with like an emotional truth or a comic premise. And usually the emotional truth is based on something about me, like my emotional truth. It's often nothing I'm particularly proud of kind of even better, you know.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I kind of know emotionally where I want her to land. And I think you have to in order to work backwards. But in terms of the plot machinations to get there, I don't know that yet. And so in terms of where I want her to land, I then start kind of filling her world with characters who, to me, have to earn their keep. You know, they have to come into conflict with her. They have to make her life miserable. They have to kind of go the distance of the novel. I have to just really make sure it's not just a funny person who appears on page 10 and disappears. Like, how am I really going to work them into the fabric of the entire novel?”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I usually start with my protagonist, you know, that that's always where I start. And I think about the journey that I want to put her on and the character arc that I want to put her on. And from there, I kind of build the world around her.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I thought I was the only one. That's right. And to me, what I went through at the time was that I felt really kind of guilty for being part of the system, which was just to kind of be on these shows. And I feel like comedy at the time, really, there was so much misogyny in it. And I didn't. I can't say that it made me feel really bad about myself, and I thought there was anything wrong with it. Like, I thought that was comedy. I thought that's what you had to do to be a comedy writer. I was often the only woman on the writing staff or one of two. And so I just kind of went along with it. And so I felt really guilty for being part of that. But also I felt really angry about what had happened to me. And so this combination of like guilt and rage.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you keep going, and that's what it was. And then when Me Too happened, it just really blew everything open because suddenly there's words for it.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, yes, and kind of combine them. And in my case, one of them made me kind of quit my job and the other one got me fired from my job. And I didn't tell anybody about it. I didn't tell friends. It was just too shameful. You know, I kind of like fully shut it out. I just thought I don't think I.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And she was a comedy writer, as I was once a comedy writer. And something happens to her. Which is a workplace kind of sexual assault. Yes. And that was, it's kind of a pastiche of two different things that happened to me when I was a TV writer, which I really exaggerated for effect. But they were sexual assaults, even though I didn't even really recognize it as such at the time.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This was something that was really challenging to write, but it was really fun, is that in the middle of the book, we kind of flashback to Adora's past. Yes.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, thank you. You know, that's a huge compliment. And I will tell you that it really felt like an act of madness as I was writing this book because I was like, I want to write all about philosophy. I want to make this huge mystery thriller. I knew there was this whole section about, you know, internalized misogyny and television writing that I wanted to get to. And I had this big crazy ending. And plus, it's a romance. And I just thought, oh my God, how am I going to make this work? And so as I was writing it, I never told anybody about it because I was just worried if I started to explain it, people would kind of start. People would do this. Yeah, exactly. And then I would just like lose all enthusiasm. But I kind of knew that I could make it all work.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But she really is. And so she's very contented with her life, and it's all going quite well until she meets a handsome stranger at the ballet. And then she maybe realizes that the desire has not entirely been snuffed out inside of”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Twin boys of an old money New York family. And she's figured out that the way to be happy is to rid herself of all desire, that desire is the source of suffering, which is a stoic thing. It's a Buddhist thing. It's something that you hear about a lot. And so when we first meet Adora, she's really living the philosophy quite swimmingly.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. Okay, so Adora is a single divorced woman, the mother of a teenage daughter who lives in New York City. Okay, so far. Exactly. So far. Me. And she is a philosopher. And her job is to teach ethics to these tween.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and it was actually really hard to do that, again, for a long time, I think in the early stages of the book that weren't working out, I really felt like I had to explain what it was. And it just was kind of dreary, and that's not why you read a novel to have someone explain philosophy.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sage and make her just really happy. And so I changed her name. I changed her city. I changed her attitude. And then the book just kind of broke open for me that this was this woman who had kind of figured out, cracked the code to happiness. What I”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. Yes. I was just like, and ending a long-term relationship. And this was just the voice that I was writing in. But I kept writing maybe by when I get to 50 pages, the kind of souffle would collapse, so to speak, because the voice just wasn't fun to write. It wasn't fun to read. And so I abandoned the book. I just put it away. And then my relationship ended and I moved to New York City. And I started life fresh in the city. I was totally dazzled by New York and kind of was surprised at how much I loved my new life here. I kept thinking, God, there's so many cool things about that book that I really want to get back to and I wish I could figure it out. And when it was time to start writing, it occurred to me, why does a Stoic have to be so grim and unfeeling? What if I make her character like a stoic?”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And perhaps that reflected where I was at the time of my life, but I kept kind of trying to write from this point of view.”
2026-04-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Maria Semple: “Go Gentle” | Oprah’s Book Club · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT