Mona Simpson Quotes & Sayings (Page 4)

“The lawyer refused to tell me my brother's name, and my colleagues started a betting pool. The leading candidate: John Travolta. I secretly hoped for a literary descendant of Henry James - someone more talented than I: someone brilliant without even trying.”

“The transparency men have enjoyed for generations, about their ability to frankly work while also reveling in fatherhood, is still complicated for women. Which is not to say that anyone can have everything.”

“We go to college, live together or marry, and have kids - often with little more thought to the daily routines of raising children than our grandparents gave them, when women by and large stayed at home.”

“We're all looking for an authentic way to be engaged in the community, engaged in politics, engaged in national discussion - and so, we're clunky. We're all clunky. But it's better than not doing it.”

“When I was in high school in Los Angeles, my mother, who was a speech therapist, agreed to stay over the weekend with one of her clients and his little sister while the parents went away on vacation. She brought me along.”

“Writers collect stories of rituals: John Cheever putting on a jacket and tie to go down to the basement, where he kept a desk near the boiler room. Keats buttoning up his clean white shirt to write in, after work.”