Amy Hempel Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• The only time the word baby doesn't scare me is the time that it should, when it is what a man calls me.

  Amy Hempel

  Baby, Men, Scare

  Amy Hempel, Rick Moody (2007). “The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel”, p.284, Simon and Schuster

  10 Copy quote

• I get rational when I panic.

  Amy Hempel

  Panic, Rational

  Amy Hempel, Rick Moody (2007). “The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel”, p.46, Simon and Schuster

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• I'm not good at small talk; I'm not good at big talk; and medium talk just doesn't come up.

  Amy Hempel

  Bigs, Come Up, Mediums

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• The worst of it is over now, and I can't say that I am glad. Lose that sense of loss—you have gone and lost something else. But the body moves toward health. The mind, too, in steps. One step at a time. Ask a mother who has just lost a child, How many children do you have? "Four," she will say, "—three," and years later, "Three," she will say, "—four.

  Amy Hempel

  Mother, Children, Moving

  Amy Hempel, Rick Moody (2007). “The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel”, p.52, Simon and Schuster

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• I could claim any number of high-flown reasons for writing, just as you can explain certain dogs behavior... But maybe, it’s that they’re dog, and that’s what dogs do.

  Amy Hempel

  Dog, Writing, Numbers

  5 Copy quote

• The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly accidentally killed me.

  Amy Hempel

  Men, Years, Vases

  Amy Hempel, Rick Moody (2007). “The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel”, p.103, Simon and Schuster

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• It is possible to imagine a person so entirely that the image resists attempts to dislodge it.

  Amy Hempel

  Imagine, Persons

  Amy Hempel (2006). “The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel”, p.378, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• And I see that not touching for so long was a drive to the beach with the windows rolled up so the waves feel that much colder.

  Amy Hempel

  Beach, Long, Touching

  Amy Hempel, Rick Moody (2007). “The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel”, p.120, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

• I assemble stories-me and a hundred million other people-at the sentence level. Not by coming up with a sweeping story line.

  Amy Hempel

  People, Stories, Levels

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• I think of the chimp, the one with the talking hands.

  Amy Hempel

  Thinking, Hands, Talking

  Amy Hempel, Rick Moody (2007). “The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel”, p.40, Simon and Schuster

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• My job ... I do nothing, it pays nothing, but - you guessed it - it's better than nothing.

  Amy Hempel

  Jobs, Work, Pay

  Amy Hempel, Rick Moody (2007). “The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel”, p.6, Simon and Schuster

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• I started writing by doing small related things but not the thing itself, circling it and getting closer. I had no idea how to write fiction. So I did journalism because there were rules I could learn. You can teach someone to write a news story. They might not write a great one, but you can teach that pretty easily.

  Amy Hempel

  Writing, Ideas, News Stories

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• I often feel the effects of people only after they leave me.

  Amy Hempel

  People, Leaving Me, Feels

  Amy Hempel, Rick Moody (2007). “The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel”, p.253, Simon and Schuster

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• There’s so much I can’t read because I get so exasperated. Someone starts describing the character boarding the plane and pulling the seat back. And I just want to say, Babe, I have been downtown. I have been up in a plane. Give me some credit.

  Amy Hempel

  Character, Giving, Downtown

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• I know when a story is finished when there is not a single thing more I can think to do to it. And since I know at the start what the last line will be, I know when I've reached that point as logically as I can that it's finished. As for the rewriting-it's not foolproof, of course, but if you're honest about having thought of every possibility and you still come back to what you have, what more can you do?

  Amy Hempel

  Writing, Thinking, Lines

  9 Copy quote

• A five-hour flight works out to three days and nights on land, by rail, from sea to shining sea. You can chalk off the hours on the back of the seat ahead. But seventy-some hours will not seem so long to you if you tell yourself first: This is where I am going to be for the rest of my natural life.

  Amy Hempel

  Night, Sea, Land

  Amy Hempel, Rick Moody (2007). “The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel”, p.151, Simon and Schuster

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• As soon as I knew that I would be all right, I was sure that I was dead and didn't know it. I moved through the days like a severed head that finishes a sentence. I waited for the moment that would snap me out of my seeming life.

  Amy Hempel

  Would Be, Moments, Sentences

  Amy Hempel, Rick Moody (2007). “The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel”, p.106, Simon and Schuster

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• I thought, my love is so good, why isn't it calling the same thing back.

  Amy Hempel

  Love Is, Calling

  Amy Hempel, Rick Moody (2007). “The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel”, p.18, Simon and Schuster

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• I know that homes burn and that you should think what to save before they start to. Not because, in the heat of it, everything looks as valuable as everything else. But, because nothing looks worth the bother, not even your life.

  Amy Hempel

  Home, Thinking, Looks

  Amy Hempel, Rick Moody (2007). “The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel”, p.62, Simon and Schuster

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• A love affair begins with a fantasy. For instance, that the beloved will always be there.

  Amy Hempel

  Love, Fantasy, Affair

  Amy Hempel (2010). “The Dog of the Marriage: Stories”, p.70, Simon and Schuster

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• When my mother died, my father's early widowhood gave him social cachet he would not have had if they had divorced. He was a bigger catch for the sorrow attached.

  Amy Hempel

  Mother, Father, Sorrow

  Amy Hempel, Rick Moody (2007). “The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel”, p.367, Simon and Schuster

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• I wanted to be a veterinarian, but slipped up when I hit organic chemistry.

  Amy Hempel

  Chemistry, Veterinarian, Wanted

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• Look at me. My concerns-are they spiritual, do you think, or carnal? Come on. We've read our Shakespeare.

  Amy Hempel

  Spiritual, Thinking, Looks

  Amy Hempel, Rick Moody (2007). “The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel”, p.275, Simon and Schuster

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• I told him about the way they get to know you. Not the way people do, the way they flatter you by wanting to know every last thing about you, only it isn't a compliment, it is just efficient, a person getting more quickly to the end of you. Correction - dogs do want to know every last thing about you. They take in the smell of you, they know from the next room, asleep, when a mood settles over you. The difference is there's not an end to it.

  Amy Hempel

  Dog, Smell, Differences

  Amy Hempel (2010). “The Dog of the Marriage: Stories”, p.63, Simon and Schuster

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• Since his mother died I have seen him steam a cucumber thinking it was zucchini. That's the kind of thing that turns my heart right over.

  Amy Hempel

  Mother, Heart, Thinking

  Amy Hempel, Rick Moody (2007). “The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel”, p.115, Simon and Schuster

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