Amy Hempel quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Amy Hempel

Amy Hempel Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Amy Hempel on Wise Famous Quotes.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I had my own bed. I slept in it alone, except for those times when we needed - not sex - but sex was how we got there.

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

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.

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

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

It's the natural trajectory of a writing career that a writer becomes better at being herself.

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

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

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

I leave a lot out when I tell the truth. The same when I write a story.

Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.

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

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

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

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

I get rational when I panic.

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

And it was the first time that I believed the claim that you can help a person more by asking them the right question than by giving them the answer.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Tell me things I won't mind forgetting, she said. 'Make it useless stuff or skip it.

There's no such thing as luck. Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.

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

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

I believe that 99 percent of what anyone does can effectively be postponed.

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

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.