It was like that class at school where the teacher talks about Realization, about how you could realize something big in a commonplace thing. The example he gave--and the liar said it really happened--was that once while drinking orange juice,… — Amy Hempel Copy Share Image
Since his mother died I have seen him steam a cucumber thinking it was zucchini. That's the kind of thing that turns my heart… — Amy Hempel Copy Share Image
“A story happens when two equally appealing forces, or characters, or ideas try to occupy the same place at the same time, and they're… — Amy Hempel Copy Share Image
“It is such a pretty story, told to me by a Cuban woman I met in a bar at the beach. She left the… — Amy Hempel Copy Share Image
Journalism taught me how to write a sentence that would make someone want to read the next one. You are trained to get rid… — Amy Hempel Copy Share 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… — Amy Hempel Copy Share Image
“Mrs. Linden was beautiful in spirit and in fact. Her wish, she told her daughter, was to be a beautiful woman and surprise people… — Amy Hempel Copy Share Image
Then the children went to bed, or at least went upstairs, and the men joined the women for a cigarette on the porch, absently… — Amy Hempel Copy Share Image
“It comes back to the question, whom are you writing for? Who are the readers you want? Who are the people you want to engage with the things that matter most to you? And for me, it's people who don't need it all spelled out because they know it, they understand it. That's why there's so much I can't read… — Amy Hempel Copy Share
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.… — Amy Hempel Copy Share Image
The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly accidentally killed me. — Amy Hempel Copy Share Image
