Large meadows are lovely for picnics and romping, but they are for the lighter feelings. Meadows do not make me want to… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
Not getting bored of my own story and/or character is one of the main struggles I have had with novel writing, and… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
At readings, audience members sometimes ask if I keep writing past the two hours if I'm on a roll, but I don't.… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
Novels are so much unrulier and more stressful to write. A short story can last two pages and then it's over, and… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
I get a little myopic in the act of doing any writing. I think I'm not as interested or not as able… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
I don't eschew autobiographical writing, but I'm not interested in mine to be so straightforward. The things that tend to move me… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
“In other words, don't be reductive. Often, writers will rush to an ending that completes, or sums up, or reduces their story… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
The writing I tend to think of as 'good' is good because it's mysterious. — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
I love food. I'm not a great cook, but I love to cook, and I like how different it is from writing. — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
I'm obsessed with adolescence. I love to write about people in their 20s. It's such a fraught and exciting and kind of… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
Generally, I think most of my writing tends to have some kind of magical element to it. That's the way I can… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
Writing can be a frightening, distressing business, and whatever kind of structure or buffer is available can help a lot. — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
For me as a person, friendships are incredibly important to me, but in writing, they can distract me. — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
It seems the best work I do is when I am really allowing the unconscious to rule the page and then later… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
Some creative writing programs seem evil, but my experience at Irvine was totally the opposite, where I feel like they were really… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
For me, even in my first book, the pleasures of writing anything magical is that it has to be physical. It has… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
“In Murakami's short story 'The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day,' the main character is a writer. In describing the act of… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
“Does it work with sandwiches? he asked. I didn't move. He handed it over. George was watching with a kind of neutral curiosity, and… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
There's a spectrum of those moments of connection and the moments we fail to connect, going from super-large successes to failures. Success would be… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
I did plays in college, and I have half of a play. But I'm kind of stuck. I keep revisiting it so maybe it… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
“My genes, my love, are rubber bands and rope - make yourself a structure you can live inside.” — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
One thing I don't want to feel is marketplace pressure, so I'm really glad I enjoy teaching because I can rely on that for… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
Language is the ticket to plot and character, after all, because both are built out of language. — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
“The sensor did not seem to be restricted to my mother's food, and there was so much to sort through, a torrent of information,… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
I peeled the skin off a grape in slippery little triangles, and I understood then that I would be undressing every item of food… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
It was like we were exchanging codes, on how to be a father and a daughter, like we'd read about it in a manual,… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
“I started in our neighborhood, buying a pastrami burrito at Oki Dog and a deluxe gardenburger at Astro Burger and matzoh-ball soup at Greenblatt's… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
“I loved my dish towel. This one was two-toned, and had, on one side, stitchings of fat purple roses on a lavender background, and… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
