Quote

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

Amy Hempel

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Amy Hempel
Age: 73
Born: 1951
Born: December 14
Journalist
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Small
Talk
Bigs
Doesn
Come
Good
Medium
Mediums

More quotes by Amy Hempel

Image
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
Image
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!
Amy Hempel
Image
I assemble stories-me and a hundred million other people-at the sentence level. Not by coming up with a sweeping story line.
Amy Hempel
Image
The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly accidentally killed me.
Amy Hempel
Image
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
Image
What I think, Chatty says, is that if a man loves a woman more than a woman loves a man, then they're even.
Amy Hempel
Image
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
Image
Just because you have stopped sinking doesn't mean you're not still underwater.
Amy Hempel
Image
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
Image
An idea might spark an essay, but never a story.
Amy Hempel
Image
I thought, my love is so good, why isn't it calling the same thing back.
Amy Hempel
Image
Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.
Amy Hempel
Image
I leave a lot out when I tell the truth
Amy Hempel
Image
I exaggerated even before I began to exaggerate, because it's true — nothing is ever quite as bad as it could be.
Amy Hempel
Image
He wondered how we know that what happens to us isn't good.
Amy Hempel
Image
A love affair begins with a fantasy. For instance, that the beloved will always be there.
Amy Hempel
Image
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.
Amy Hempel
Image
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.
Amy Hempel
Image
When the beer is gone, so are they -- flexing their cars on up the boulevard.
Amy Hempel
Image
It is possible to imagine a person so entirely that the image resists attempts to dislodge it.
Amy Hempel