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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
Turns
Mother
Zucchini
Right
Cucumber
Heart
Cucumbers
Thing
Steam
Kind
Died
Thinking
Seen
Since

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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 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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Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.
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I moved through the days like a severed head that finishes a sentence.
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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.
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I wanted to be a veterinarian, but slipped up when I hit organic chemistry.
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Then the children went to bed, or at least went upstairs, and the men joined the women for a cigarette on the porch, absently picking ticks engorged like grapes off the sleeping dogs. And when the men kissed the women good night, and their weekend whiskers scratched the women's cheeks, the women did not think shave, they thought stay.
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I leave a lot out when I tell the truth
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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.
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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 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.
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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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I'm not first and foremost interested in story and the what-happens, but I'm interested in who's telling it and how they're telling it and the effects of whatever happened on the characters and the people.
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When the beer is gone, so are they -- flexing their cars on up the boulevard.
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We can only die in the future, I thought right now we are always alive.
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An idea might spark an essay, but never a story.
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Sometimes a flat-footed sentence is what serves, so you don't get all writerly: 'He opened the door.' There, it's open.
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A love affair begins with a fantasy. For instance, that the beloved will always be there.
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For peace of mind, I will lie about any thing at any time.
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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.
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