Mona Simpson Quotes

My grandfather sold insurance to King Farouk of Egypt. And my savta's parents helped found the city of Tel Aviv in 1906. Our family name used to be Mizrahi, but they changed it to Mayron, which means 'happy water' in Hebrew.

Cairo had not yet become the stamping-ground of tourists. Foreigners were curiosities, and the true believer's hatred for the accursed Giaour, or "Christian dog," was something that he was very proud of. A fanatic was liable to make trouble at any moment.

History has always fascinated me. Coming from a family that has it's own regal history, I always like places that have a rich past.

If you want something Scottish, go get yourself a kilt.

We never wore burkas because Somalis had our own culture.

The hat is the common headgear of the Turkish people, and the government forbids habits to the contrary.

The gentleman will please remember that when his half-civilized ancestors were hunting wild boar in Silesia, mine were princes of the earth.

The king and the dauphin both like to see me on horseback. I only say this because all the world perceives it, and especially while we were absent from Versailles, they were delighted to see me in my riding habit.

I'm actually the son of Mary Guibert. My mother was born in the Panama Canal zone and came to America when she was five with my grandmother and grandfather, and that was the family I knew. Everybody sang; everybody had songs all the time, and they loved music.

I was proud my father spoke Arabic fluently - his father sent him to learn Arabic from a sheikh - and we had Arab friends. His task of understanding the Arabs - not only politics but poetry - was very important; he took it as a vocation.

I always wanted to write a history of Jerusalem.

Storytelling was a way to see the world bigger than the one you were looking at, and that had great appeal for me. I think, since that was part of my upbringing, it became part of me, and I wanted to pass it along to my kids and my grandkids.

It's true of Irish Catholic families. They're big on story telling and big on saving stories from one generation to the next.

Almost any American can connect on some level to a family background of having come across some ocean. They say, 'My great-grandparents came from wherever... this is why we have this last name, why we do this thing at Christmas.' All the details get watered down but don't quite disappear.

My great grandfather emigrated from Italy, and my grandfather worked in a steel mill and was able to raise kids and have a family and go on vacation.

I went to a school called Waterford Kamhlaba, and 'Kamhlaba' is what the king of Swaziland called the school because... in siSwati, it means 'all the world in one.'

I had grandparents who were native Irish speakers, and also, two of the four grandparents were illiterate.

My dad was a brilliant civil engineer. My parents later divorced, but we lived in Abu Dhabi, Greece, Kuwait.

Nowadays, all actresses wear gowns and trot all over the place. However, our sarees would look more elegant, and yet so appealing. So, my advice to all heroines is: start wearing sarees as well, to look more beautiful!

I come from a big family where we tell big stories. All we had was the storytelling.

As little boys, my brother and I used to spend hours with my grandmother, asking her about the details of how she came to America. She could only give us a smattering of details, but they all found their way into our collective imagination, eventually becoming a part of our own cultural identity and connection to the past.

I began to write, believing that all I had to do to change things would be to write the other side, to tell the stories that I heard from my grandmother.

So much of me is because of what my parents experienced in this country. So much of me is because of the things my parents overcame so that I could have the luxury of having a dream.

My mother was an oral storyteller. She would tell stories over and over again.

My mom loves saris, and when I was a child, she told me 'a girl looks good in an Indian traditional outfit.' So, somehow it stayed in my head, and I really enjoy Indian wear.