Even more than we want good love for ourselves, we want it for our children, those vulnerable satellites of our hearts that we send, unsteady, into the world.
Mona SimpsonRead
Even as a feminist, my whole life I'd been waiting for a man to love who could love me. For decades, I'd thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man, and he was my brother.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the struggle of seeking love and acceptance, ultimately finding it in unexpected places within one's family.
Mona Simpson's quote expresses a profound journey of understanding love and companionship. It highlights the societal expectation of romantic love while revealing that true emotional connection can come from familial relationships. Through her experience, she reflects on the complexities of love and the often-unrecognized bonds that exist within family, particularly in this case between siblings.
Themes
LoveFamilyBrotherhoodRelationshipsFeminism
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during family reunions to highlight the importance of familial love.
More from Mona Simpson
All quotes →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.
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Instead of a dedicated room, my best trigger is the actual habit of reading over the texts from the day before. Marking. Changing. Fussing. This ritual amounts to a habit of trust. Trust that I can make it better. That if I keep trying, I will come closer to something true.
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We come into the world whole, all of us, but we don't know that, don't know that life will be taking large chunks out of us, forever.
Mona SimpsonRead
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