Reading-not occasionally, not only on vacation but everyday-gives me nourishment and enlarges my life in mysterious and essential ways. — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
I'm a believer in using whatever works for fiction, but mostly, that's not life. — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
Writers collect stories of rituals: John Cheever putting on a jacket and tie to go down to the basement, where he kept… — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
I've never felt powerful enough to write a true political novel, or deeply knowledgeable enough to draw a character like, say, Tolstoy's… — 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
I remember the excitement of finding a great pancake recipe in 'Gourmet.' It felt as if it were mine. And it was Berkeley, of… — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
Gossip is essentially storytelling: storytelling about people whom we know. — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
'Casebook' is my attempt at a love story. I had a vision of a difficult love. — Mona Simpson Copy Share Image
