I know when a story is finished when there is not a single thing more I can think to do to it.… — Amy Hempel Copy Share 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 Copy Share Image
I'm not first and foremost interested in story and the what-happens, but I'm interested in who's telling it and how they're telling… — Amy Hempel Copy Share Image
Maybe this is not a come-down-from-the-ledge story. But I tell it with the thought that the woman on the ledge will ask… — Amy Hempel Copy Share Image
I probably have less revision than those who have that wonderful rush of story to tell - you know, I can't wait… — Amy Hempel Copy Share Image
I do feel that if you can write one good sentence and then another good sentence and then another, you end up… — Amy Hempel Copy Share Image
I started writing by doing small related things but not the thing itself, circling it and getting closer. I had no idea… — Amy Hempel Copy Share Image
Sometimes I can better describe a person by another person's reaction. In a story in my first book, I couldn't think of… — Amy Hempel Copy Share Image
I've always known when I start a story what the last line is. It's always been the case, since the first story… — 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… — Amy Hempel Copy Share Image
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
