112 Quotes by Amy Hempel

The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly accidentally killed me.

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 right over.

I assemble stories-me and a hundred million other people-at the sentence level. Not by coming up with a sweeping story line.

When my mother died, my father's early widowhood gave him social cachet he would not have had if they had divorced. He was a bigger catch for the sorrow attached.

I am not quite myself, I think.But who here is quite himself? And yet there is a way in which we are all more ourselves than ever, I suppose.

I think you would like Warren. He drinks Courvoisier in a Coke can, and has a laugh like you'd find in a cartoon bubble.

I think of the chimp, the one with the talking hands.

An idea might spark an essay, but never a story.

I leave a lot out when I tell the truth