Amy Hempel
Amy Hempel
Amy Hempelis an American short story writer and journalist. She teaches creative writing at Bennington College and University of Florida...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth14 December 1951
CountryUnited States of America
giving mind sparks
I meet a person, and in my mind I'm saying three minutes; I give you three minutes to show me the spark.
jobs work pay
My job ... I do nothing, it pays nothing, but - you guessed it - it's better than nothing.
mother children moving
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 time. Ask a mother who has just lost a child, How many children do you have? "Four," she will say, "—three," and years later, "Three," she will say, "—four.
would-be moments sentences
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.
want knows
I want to know everything about you, so I tell you everything about myself.
beach long touching
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.
panic rational
I get rational when I panic.
mother baby grief
I think of the chimp, the one with the talking hands. In the course of the experiment, that chimp had a baby. Imagine how her trainers must have thrilled when the mother, without prompting, began to sign her newborn. Baby, drink milk. Baby, play ball. And when the baby died, the mother stood over the body, her wrinkled hands moving with animal grace, forming again and again the words: Baby, come hug, Baby come hug, fluent now in the language of grief.
home thinking looks
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.
heart people alive
Wear your heart on the page, and people will read to find out how you solved being alive.
baby men scare
The only time the word baby doesn't scare me is the time that it should, when it is what a man calls me.
sleep glasses water
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.
fall broken speak
In my head there's a broken balcony I fall off of when I speak.
bigs come-up mediums
I'm not good at small talk; I'm not good at big talk; and medium talk just doesn't come up.