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Sometimes I can better describe a person by another person's reaction. In a story in my first book, I couldn't think of a way to sufficiently describe the charisma of a certain boy, so the narrator says, I knew girls who saved his gum.
Amy Hempel
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Amy Hempel
Age: 73
Born: 1951
Born: December 14
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Illinois
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More quotes by Amy Hempel
I'm not good at small talk I'm not good at big talk and medium talk just doesn't come up.
Amy Hempel
I often feel the effects of people only after they leave me.
Amy Hempel
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.
Amy Hempel
He could not wait to get rid of them so he could enjoy remembering them.
Amy Hempel
consolation is a beautiful word. everyone skins his knee-that doesnt make yours hurt anyless.
Amy Hempel
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
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
I leave a lot out when I tell the truth
Amy Hempel
An idea might spark an essay, but never a story.
Amy Hempel
I wanted to be a veterinarian, but slipped up when I hit organic chemistry.
Amy Hempel
Look at me. My concerns-are they spiritual, do you think, or carnal? Come on. We've read our Shakespeare.
Amy Hempel
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?
Amy Hempel
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.
Amy Hempel
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
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
It is possible to imagine a person so entirely that the image resists attempts to dislodge it.
Amy Hempel
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.
Amy Hempel
Dreams: the place most of us get what we need.
Amy Hempel
Sometimes a flat-footed sentence is what serves, so you don't get all writerly: 'He opened the door.' There, it's open.
Amy Hempel
The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly accidentally killed me.
Amy Hempel