In our national mythology, we seem to include only one-way migrations to the great capitol cities. The journey from the small Wisconsin town or Minnesota city to Chicago or New York or Los Angeles. Certainly for some people, that journey… — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
Often, I think, displaced people imagine themselves leading double lives. So a portion of my identity has always been privately siphoned into what would have been if I had stayed in Wisconsin. — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
“Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? Does it improve upon the silence?” — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
I've never had an exclusive relationship to a room where I write. I used to want one. — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
I grew up as an only child with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from… — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
“A mother's happiness; something you recognize and then forget; it didn't seem to matter much, though it spread through our bodies.” — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
I'm a simple cook, and there's a lot I don't eat. But food is important. It translates so easily into pleasure. — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
I knew I would hate my best memory because it would prove that people could fake love or that love could end or worst… — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
Once upon a time, my mother lived in the posh downtown of Homs, Syria. She described my grandfather as a king in a storybook,… — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
In my 30s, I wrote in the back house of a ramshackle Spanish Revival we rented across from the ocean in the Santa Monica… — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
I read a lot of books about psychopaths. I read a wonderful book Amy Hempel gave me about the guy who created criminal profiling… — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later. — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
I eventually made the reunion with my father that I'd used as a default daydream throughout my childhood, but by then, we'd both outgrown… — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
