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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

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Amy Hempel
Age: 72
Born: 1951
Born: December 14
Journalist
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Thinking
Seen
Since
Turns
Mother
Zucchini
Right
Cucumber
Heart
Cucumbers
Thing
Steam
Kind
Died

More quotes by Amy Hempel

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It is possible to imagine a person so entirely that the image resists attempts to dislodge it.
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In my head there's a broken balcony I fall off of when I speak.
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Maybe this is not a come-down-from-the-ledge story. But I tell it with the thought that the woman on the ledge will ask herself a question, the question that occurred to that man in Bogota. He wondered how we know that what happens to us isn't good?
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I probably have less revision than those who have that wonderful rush of story to tell - you know, I can't wait to tell you what happened the other day. It comes tumbling out and maybe then they go back and refine. I kind of envy that way of working, but I just have never done it.
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I meet a person, and in my mind I'm saying three minutes I give you three minutes to show me the spark.
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I wanted to be a veterinarian, but slipped up when I hit organic chemistry.
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I would like to go for a ride with you, have you take me to stand before a river in the dark where hundreds of lightning bugs blink this code in sequence: right here, nowhere else! Right now, never again!
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I leave a lot out when I tell the truth
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Journalism taught me how to write a sentence that would make someone want to read the next one. You are trained to get rid of anything nonessential. You go in, you start writing your article, assuming a person's going to stop reading the minute you give them a reason. So the trick is: don't give them one.
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I often feel the effects of people only after they leave me.
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The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly accidentally killed me.
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I exaggerated even before I began to exaggerate, because it's true — nothing is ever quite as bad as it could be.
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He could not wait to get rid of them so he could enjoy remembering them.
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When the beer is gone, so are they -- flexing their cars on up the boulevard.
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Look at me. My concerns-are they spiritual, do you think, or carnal? Come on. We've read our Shakespeare.
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consolation is a beautiful word. everyone skins his knee-that doesnt make yours hurt anyless.
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The only time the word baby doesn't scare me is the time that it should, when it is what a man calls me.
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I assemble stories-me and a hundred million other people-at the sentence level. Not by coming up with a sweeping story line.
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I had a mother I could only seem to please with verbal accomplishments of some sort or another. She read constantly, so I read constantly. If I used words that might have seemed surprising at a young age, she would recognize that and it would please her.
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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.
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