Amy Hempel - The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel (2006)

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Just because you have stopped sinking doesn't mean you're not still underwater.

Amy Hempel
Then the children went to bed, or at least went upstairs, and the men joined the women for a cigarette on the porch, absently picking ticks engorged like grapes off the sleeping dogs. And when the men kissed the women good night, and their weekend whiskers scratched the women's cheeks, the women did not think shave, they thought stay.

Amy Hempel
Look at me. My concerns-are they spiritual, do you think, or carnal? Come on. We've read our Shakespeare.

Amy Hempel
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.

Amy Hempel
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.

Amy Hempel
A five-hour flight works out to three days and nights on land, by rail, from sea to shining sea. You can chalk off the hours on the back of the seat ahead. But seventy-some hours will not seem so long to you if you tell yourself first: This is where I am going to be for the rest of my natural life.

Amy Hempel
If it's true your life flashes past your eyes before you die, then it is also the truth that your life rushes forth when you are ready to start to truly be alive.

Amy Hempel
I exaggerated even before I began to exaggerate, because it's true — nothing is ever quite as bad as it could be.

Amy Hempel
Just once in my life—oh, when have I ever wanted anything just once in my life?

Amy Hempel
We can only die in the future, I thought; right now we are always alive.

Amy Hempel
A love affair begins with a fantasy. For instance, that the beloved will always be there.

Amy Hempel
In my head there's a broken balcony I fall off of when I speak.

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

Amy Hempel