Amy Hempel Quotes

Just because you have stopped sinking doesn't mean you're not still underwater.

We can only die in the future, I thought; right now we are always alive.

Sometimes a flat-footed sentence is what serves, so you don't get all writerly: 'He opened the door.' There, it's open.

They say the smart dog obeys but the smarter dog knows when to disobey.

Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.

Wear your heart on the page, and people will read to find out how you solved being alive.

In my head there's a broken balcony I fall off of when I speak.

if it's true your life flashes past your eyes before you die, then it is also the truth that your life rushes forth when you are ready to start to truly be alive.

I sleep with a glass of water on the nightstand so I can see by its level if the coastal earth is trembling or if the shaking is still me.

I want to know everything about you, so I tell you everything about myself.

I exaggerated even before I began to exaggerate, because it's true — nothing is ever quite as bad as it could be.

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

I get rational when I panic.

Just once in my life--oh, when have I ever wanted anything just once in my life?

I meet a person, and in my mind I'm saying three minutes; I give you three minutes to show me the spark.

Dreams: the place most of us get what we need.

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

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

I do feel that if you can write one good sentence and then another good sentence and then another, you end up with a good story.

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.

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

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

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.

consolation is a beautiful word. everyone skins his knee-that doesnt make yours hurt anyless.

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.

I moved through the days like a severed head that finishes a sentence.

The other day I was playing Scrabble. I saw that I could close the space in D-E- -Y. I had an N and an F. Which do you think I chose? What was the word I made?

What I think," Chatty says, "is that if a man loves a woman more than a woman loves a man, then they're even.

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.

For peace of mind, I will lie about any thing at any time.

nothing is ever quite as bad as it could be.

He wondered how we know that what happens to us isn't good.

When the beer is gone, so are they -- flexing their cars on up the boulevard.

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

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

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

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

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.

He could not wait to get rid of them so he could enjoy remembering them.

An idea might spark an essay, but never a story.

I am not quite myself, I think.But who here is quite himself? And yet there is a way in which we are all more ourselves than ever, I suppose.

I leave a lot out when I tell the truth

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

I think you would like Warren. He drinks Courvoisier in a Coke can, and has a laugh like you'd find in a cartoon bubble.

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

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