Amy Hempel Quotes

I had my own bed. I slept in it alone, except for those times when we needed—not sex—but sex was how we got there.

Yesterday, where someone had dumped a cat-scratched leather recliner in the weedy empty lot around the corner, an elderly man was found sitting in the chair, quietly disoriented. The recliner looked l...

About Author

Amy Hempel (born December 14, 1951) is an American short story writer and journalist. She teaches creative writing at the Michener Center for Writers.

It’s the natural trajectory of a writing career that a writer becomes better at being herself.

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.

I like radio personalities, and I like to change lanes. And losing yourself on the freeway is like living at the beach--you're not aware of lapsed time, and suddenly you're there, where it was you wer...

consolation is a beautiful word. everyone skins his knee-that doesnt make yours hurt anyless.

He wondered how we know that what happens to us isn't good.

What I think, Chatty says, is that if a man loves a woman more than a woman loves a man, then they're even.

The psychic said I would have two children. This makes me shake my head. I know you are not supposed to leave a baby alone. Not even for a minute. But after a while I think, What could happen to a bab...

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 th...

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. But the body moves toward health. The mind, too, in steps. One step at a tim...

I get rational when I panic.

I exaggerated even before I began to exaggerate, because it's true — nothing is ever quite as bad as it could be.

I believe that 99 percent of what anyone does can effectively be postponed.

Just once in my life--oh, when have I ever wanted anything just once in my life?

I would have written this next part into the story if anybody would have believed it. But who would have? I was there and I didn't believe it.

He turned off the freeway onto a wide commercial drive of franchised food and failing business. The

For example, the questions that say, Would you prefer... Would you prefer (a) Answer questions about what you do, (b) Answer questions about what you know, (c) Answer questions about what you think?My...

I often feel the effects of people only after they leave me.

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 sn...