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

Amy Hempel

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Amy Hempel
Age: 73
Born: 1951
Born: December 14
Journalist
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Head
Fall
Speak
Balcony
Balconies
Broken

More quotes by Amy Hempel

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Just once in my life--oh, when have I ever wanted anything just once in my life?
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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.
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When the beer is gone, so are they -- flexing their cars on up the boulevard.
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My job ... I do nothing, it pays nothing, but - you guessed it - it's better than nothing.
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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 wanted to be a veterinarian, but slipped up when I hit organic chemistry.
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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.
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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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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.
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All those years on the psychiatrist's couch and suddenly the couch is moving. Good God, she is on that couch when the big one hits. Maidy didn't tell you, but you know what her doctor said? She sprang from the couch and said, My God, was that an earthquake? The doctor said this: Did it feel like an earthquake to you?
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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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They say the smart dog obeys but the smarter dog knows when to disobey.
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I'm not good at small talk I'm not good at big talk and medium talk just doesn't come up.
Amy Hempel
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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?
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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've always known when I start a story what the last line is. It's always been the case, since the first story I ever wrote. I don't know how it's going to get there, but I seem to need the destination. I need to know where I end up. It never changes, ever.
Amy Hempel
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He wondered how we know that what happens to us isn't good.
Amy Hempel
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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
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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.
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Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.
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