Aimee Bender Quotes

I want to be violated by insight.

We're all getting too smart. Our brains are just getting bigger and bigger, and the world dries up and dies when there's too much thought and not enough heart.

It is so often surprising, who rescues you at your lowest moments.

Many kids, it seemed, would find out that their parents were flawed, messed-up people later in life, and I didn't appreciate getting to know it all so strong and early.

As a writer you ask yourself to dream while awake.

Light is good company, when alone; I took my comfort where I found it, and the warmest yellow bulb in the living-room lamp had become a kind of radiant babysitter all its own.

…kissing George was a little like rolling in caramel after spending years surviving off rice sticks.

...a Dorito asks nothing of you, which is its great gift. It only asks that you are not there.

Mom flipped through the magazines like the pages needed to be slapped.

I admired that stride; it was like he folded space in two with it.

I like birthday cake. It's so symbolic. It's a tempting symbol to load with something more complicated than just 'Happy birthday!' because it's this emblem of childhood and a happy day.

Large meadows are lovely for picnics and romping, but they are for the lighter feelings. Meadows do not make me want to write.

My genes, my love, are rubber bands and rope; make yourself a structure you can live inside. Amen." — Aimee Bender (Willful Creatures: Stories)

While she cut the mushrooms, she cried more than she had at the grave, the most so far, because she found the saddest thing of all to be the simple truth of her capacity to move on.

My eyelids are my own private cave, he murmured. That I can go to anytime I want.

I was right at the edge of their circle, like the tail of a Q...

It seems the best work I do is when I am really allowing the unconscious to rule the page and then later I can go back and hack around and make sense of things.

With my hand in his, I looked at all the apartment buildings with rushes of love, peering in the wide streetside windows that revealed living rooms painted in dark burgandies and matte reds.

I peeled the skin off a grape in slippery little triangles, and I understood then that I would be undressing every item of food I could because my clothes would be staying on.

When the light at Vernon turned green, we stepped into the street and George grabbed my hand and the ghosts of our younger selves crossed with us.

You can ruin anything if you focus at it.

But the sky is interesting, it changes all the time.

I give boring people something to discuss over corn.

To see someone you love, in a bad setting, is one of the great barometers of gratitude.

When language is treated beautifully and interestingly, it can feel good for the body: It's nourishing; it's rejuvenating.

I felt the crumpled paper that had taken the place of my lungs expand as if released from a fist.

It seemed to happen in springs, the revealing of things.

Language is the ticket to plot and character, after all, because both are built out of language.

I don't think so, I don't agree. The most unbearable thing I think by far, she said, is hope.

But I loved George in part because he believed me; because if I stood in a cold, plain room and yelled FIRE, he would walk over and ask me why.

Not getting bored of my own story and/or character is one of the main struggles I have had with novel writing, and I have put to bed big chunks of work that just didn't sustain my interest.

You're the perfect girl', he said, rubbing his chin. 'You expect nothing.

I'm obsessed with adolescence. I love to write about people in their 20s. It's such a fraught and exciting and kind of horrible time.

The writing I tend to think of as 'good' is good because it's mysterious.

My lover is experiencing reverse evolution.

The wine glasses are empty except for that one undrinkable red spot at the bottom.

You try, you seem totally nuts, you go underground.

I didn’t mind the quiet stretches. It was like we were trying out the idea of being side by side.

I was with them for all of it, but more like an echo than a participant.

We hit the sidewalk, and dropped hands. How I wished, right then, that the whole world was a street.

I watched as she added a question mark at the end. Arc, line, space, dot.

I could feel the tears beginning to collect in my throat again, but I pushed them apart, away from each other. Tears are only a threat in groups.

That's the thing with handmade items. They still have the person's mark on them, and when you hold them, you feel less alone.

Most teenage girls don't give old people the time of day which is sad because all old people do all the time is think about how nice it was to be a teenager so long ago.

You can't predict the outcome. You can't raise a child and then tell them what to think.

I just like the feeling of finding the right word in my mind and employing it. I get pleasure from that feeling. I prefer language to gesture. I figured other people might, too.

It is these empty spaces you have to watch out for, as they flood up with feeling before you even realize what's happened.

Sherrie would be there, and the last time I’d seen her at a social event she burst into tears when she saw me and ran out of the room. You’re upset, I’d yelled after her, meanly.

At lunch you order steamed vegetables because you're remembering that you have a heart too. You feel humbled by your heart, it works so hard. You want to thank it. You give your heart a little pat

He said, I always thought the woman I’d marry would hit me easy, in a bolt of lightning, and there is not lightning there is not even thunder there is not even rain.