Maria Semple

Like 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 mindset where I just kind of picture, you know, the good things that can still happen.

And I think that every good thing in our life, I don't think it takes that much work to

connected pretty directly to a previous disappointment, you know?

And so that's what I think is really useful.

And once you really internalize that, you learn to kind of roll with the things that don't go your way because you just realize, you know, it's all going to work out.

It's all for a reason.

Something better is going to come around.

Oh, yes.

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 were magically open to me, you know, loved and successful I would be.

And I'm writing that from a Doris point of view in the flashback when she's younger.

That's right.

And that really was definitely 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 insanity and unhappiness.

And so I really wanted to, you know, 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.