112 Quotes by Amy Hempel

It is possible to imagine a person so entirely that the image resists attempts to dislodge it.

I meet a person, and in my mind I'm saying three minutes; I give you three minutes to show me the spark.

My job ... I do nothing, it pays nothing, but - you guessed it - it's better than nothing.

As soon as I knew that I would be all right, I was sure that I was dead and didn't know it. I moved through the days like a severed head that finishes a sentence. I waited for the moment that would snap me out of my seeming life.

I want to know everything about you, so I tell you everything about myself.

I get rational when I panic.

I know that homes burn and that you should think what to save before they start to. Not because, in the heat of it, everything looks as valuable as everything else. But, because nothing looks worth the bother, not even your life.

Wear your heart on the page, and people will read to find out how you solved being alive.

The only time the word baby doesn't scare me is the time that it should, when it is what a man calls me.