“but the rest of the evening is nothing but the trembling edges of something I am so tired of feeling and I… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
“Dad lost his job. Then he got a new job. Then he got his old job back and went back to it.… — Aimee Bender Dry-humor Copy Share Image
I love the idea of numerology, but I don't really believe in it. But I like thinking about what numbers convey. — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
Many kids, it seemed, would find out that their parents were flawed, messed-up people later in life, and I didn't appreciate getting… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
“I just like the feeling of finding the right word in my mind and employing it. I get pleasure from that feeling.… — Aimee Bender Communication Copy Share Image
I felt the crumpled paper that had taken the place of my lungs expand as if released from a fist. — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
“Pain was no longer a mystery to him, and a man familiar with pain has entered a new kind of freedom.” — Aimee Bender Freedom 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
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
“No one needed to say it, but the room overflowed with that sort of blessing. The combination of loss and abundance. The… — Aimee Bender Abundance Copy Share Image
“Then he sat down at the table of a larger man, a man with tattoos but the old kind, before tattoos became… — Aimee Bender Life Copy Share Image
I knew if I ate anything of hers again, it would lkely tell me the same message: help me, I am not… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
I am the drying meadow; you the unspoken apology; he is the fluctuating distance between mother and son; she is the first… — Aimee Bender Amen Copy Share Image
I think teaching keeps me honest because if I'm up in front of a class talking about what I think is important… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
“In those days, she let her hair loose, down to her waist, and whenever I met old friends of hers, they would… — Aimee Bender Friendship Copy Share Image
“My father usually agreed with her requests, because stamped in his two-footed stance and jaw was the word Provider, and he loved… — Aimee Bender Men Copy Share Image
That at the same time of this very intimate act of concentrating so carefully on the details of our mother's palm and… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
“That," she said, "is a little closer to how I imagine it works. Whether or not you pray has absolutely nothing to… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
“Here is something I understand about psychology, and I think it relates to fiction: if you loosen up your understanding of yourself… — Aimee Bender Books Copy Share Image
“I've noticed this: when it's the first date, and you fuck, the guy hold you much better than he does the next… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
“In the evenings, my father and I ate dinner quietly in front of the TV together. Wednesday night, Thursday. Frozen dinners I'd… — Aimee Bender Enchiladas Copy Share Image
“What I taste, I said, reading from my page, is what I remember from my last Dorito, plus the chemicals that are… — Aimee Bender Doritos Copy Share Image
“The room filled with the smell of warming butter and sugar and lemon and eggs, and at five, the timer buzzed and… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
“Several of the girls at the party had had sex, something which sounded appealing but only if it could happen with blindfolds… — Aimee Bender Blindfolds Copy Share Image
“Mom’s smiles were so full of feeling that people leaned back a little when she greeted them. It was hard to know… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
“I think it's good to smile at everybody so that everyone knows you love everyone. It's good for human pacifism.” — Aimee Bender Humor Copy Share Image
We hit the sidewalk, and dropped hands. How I wished, right then, that the whole world was a street. — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
…kissing George was a little like rolling in caramel after spending years surviving off rice sticks. — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
Large meadows are lovely for picnics and romping, but they are for the lighter feelings. Meadows do not make me want to… — Aimee Bender Feelings Copy Share Image
“I will never die, thought the cake to itself, in even simpler terms, as cakes did not have sophisticated use of language.” — 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 peeled the skin off a grape in slippery little triangles, and I understood then that I would be undressing every item… — Aimee Bender Clothes Copy Share Image
When language is treated beautifully and interestingly, it can feel good for the body: It's nourishing; it's rejuvenating. — 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 Access 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
“I'd stopped waving to passengers in cars by then- I'd grown suspicious of people and all the complications of interior lives- so… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
I find I can write for two lines, and then I have nothing else to say. For me, the only way to… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
“Though loss did not pass from one person to another liker a baton; it just formed a bigger and bigger pool of… — Aimee Bender Losing a loved one Copy Share Image
“Joseph would reach out to me occasionally, the same way the desert blooms a flower every now and then. You get so… — Aimee Bender Copy Share Image
I write on a very strict 2-hour-a-day schedule, and I really respond to structure and invented rules. So even if I'm finding… — Aimee Bender Character Copy Share Image
