Commitment Quotes

“Mental problems were different, though. They smudged the sufferer. People didn’t offer food or flowers. They lowered their voices, as if discretion was a kindness.”
― Mona Simpson, Commitment

“He respected architecture less than he once had. Some buildings were true art. A few more worked like machines for living. But when he looked at most new buildings, what he saw was ego. So many people had to erect their own; it would go on until we plowed down the last trees on the planet.”
― Mona Simpson, Commitment

“You can’t judge yourself like that,” Walter said. “This woman Larkin, she may have had a different start.”
― Mona Simpson, Commitment

“When Walter had come to see Lina’s show, five years ago, he’d taken a secret trip to see Carrie and ask her a question. He told her, without words, I’m ready now. She lived, like a graduate student, in a neighborhood that felt like a vacation. Blooming flowers. Bamboo blinds, music coming out onto the sidewalks. She kept finches in a white painted aviary and rode her bike to the university library. But she’d sent him back to his life.”
― Mona Simpson, Commitment

“He thought about Lina saying she was like their mom. She was scared that it would happen to her. There was something tentative about his sister; he wasn’t like that. His mother must have somehow given him a confidence that she didn’t have herself. Still, Lina was an artist. That took courage. He’d made a bargain with life. He’d spend his time gaining the ease they’d once needed. His kids could be artists. He hoped they would be.”
― Mona Simpson, Commitment

“I’m not talking about whether or not you’ll send me a card next February.” She shook her head. “I can’t be with a withholder. I won’t live with little denials.” The way she said that, it sounded like he’d proposed.”
― Mona Simpson, Commitment

“He and Susan had their first fight. I don’t believe in Valentine’s Day was what he’d said that started it. That Hallmark invented the holiday. “Hallmark’s older than I’d thought, then,” she said, “because Chaucer wrote Saint Valentine’s Day was when birds find their mates. There’s some reference in Hamlet, too, I think. And isn’t it Mother’s Day Hallmark invented? Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, they’re not things to believe in or not believe in. They don’t have a theology. They’re opportunities to make someone feel appreciated or to deny them that.”
― Mona Simpson, Commitment

“Carrie would always have him anyway, he thought, the way she had him now. Spring smells of dirt and rainwater rose from the ground. Love was a mixed business. As in building, he couldn’t afford the refinement he desired. He needed too much. Carrie had been his great romance. He hadn’t been hers. With Susan it wasn’t romance, exactly. It was home.”
― Mona Simpson, Commitment

“interrupting each other. They decided that finding a person’s secret hope, like that woman’s to be a singer, and then praising her for what, in fact, she couldn’t do, was a way to hold her captive. If you searched for a real strength, even a pedestrian ability, like knowing how to change a tire or do dishes, and praised someone for that, she might recognize her skill and become independent. The world needed people to change tires and do dishes. A person with a skill could leave you. Whereas the only audience for the concert they’d just heard was this group of Berkeley Moonies.”
― Mona Simpson, Commitment

“Still, Walter had never contended with their mother the way she had. He hadn’t been there for the worst of it. And their mother had always been different with him. Lina desperately wanted not to become her. Walter never for a second even considered that he could.”
― Mona Simpson, Commitment

“She would have loved to be able to hate her mother the way they did, with a breeziness carried by a fundamental trust in a home with a set table and dinner cooking.”
― Mona Simpson, Commitment

“Sometimes I think you’re allergic to fun,” Carrie said. That stung. He was having fun right now! He wasn’t wild enough for her. When she was slipping into restaurants in scant clothes, he walked around Berkeley in the dark. Carefree, the politician had called college students. Walter had cares, but he’d also had days at Ken’s house; he’d gone swimming in a pond at dawn with a girl he almost loved. His first day in the dorm, the glimpse of gold under the cloth draped over Ken’s French horn. He wouldn’t have swapped his own youth.”
― Mona Simpson, Commitment

“Once, Lina’s mom had come home with a pantsuit for Lina, a Theodore knockoff. Lina had stuffed it in the back of her drawer. It mattered to her not to try.”
― Mona Simpson, Commitment

“Lina bolted up in the morning, thinking she’d slept in. She pined for regular days, which used to include heat, bees, a messy room, songs, a crush. Now she would never have them again.”
― Mona Simpson, Commitment

“Walter had seen failing bodies in the convalescent homes where his mom worked. But he didn’t imagine pushing a syringe into papery skin when he thought of his future. He didn’t think about what doctors actually did. He needed some profession. He’d once walked over a lawn to a classmate’s house. (The boy’s father, whom Walter had never met, was a cardiologist.) A recently groomed dog thumped its tail against the door, which opened to a spacious room of light and warm clutter. Walter wanted that.”
― Mona Simpson, Commitment