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bca5271
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You will stand in line for snacks behind good clothes on bad bodies, behind the man who is so drunk he has lost his shoes, and so belligerent no one will help him find them.
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Amy Hempel |
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5a111bd
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Mrs. Linden was beautiful in spirit and in fact. Her wish, she told her daughter, was to be a beautiful woman and surprise people because she was a beautiful woman who was kind.
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Amy Hempel |
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621b541
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The psychic said I would have two children. This makes me shake my head. I know you are not supposed to leave a baby alone. Not even for a minute. But after a while I think, What could happen to a baby in the time it would take for me to run to the corner for a cappuccino on the go? So I do it, I run to the corner and get the cappuccino. And then I think how close the store is that is having the sale on leather gloves. Really, I think, it i..
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Amy Hempel |
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6d55b73
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Automatic is what I can manage. Isn't there enough to pay attention to OUTSIDE the car? All I want inside a car is music. When a favorite old song comes on the radio, I can never hear it past the first few notes. The song, evocative, will take me to the place and time where I first came to hear it. I'll be taken over for the length of the song, and returned when it stops, having missed it, only knowing it was there because now it ISN'T ther..
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Amy Hempel |
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7e5e183
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When she sees him, Holly says, it's like the sunsets at the beach--once the sun drops, the sand chills quickly. Then it's like a lot of times that were good ten minutes ago and don't count now.
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Amy Hempel |
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89ee452
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It is such a pretty story, told to me by a Cuban woman I met in a bar at the beach. She left the bar before I did; a drunken man took her place. He leaned into me and said, "I see in your dark eyes that you have suffered, and you have compassion, and I have suffered, and I have compassion, and I see in your eyes that I can say things to you--" "My eyes are blue," I said." --
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Amy Hempel |
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920fa6e
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The women advised long walks. They told the wife to watch the sun rise and set, to look for solace in the natural world, though they admitted there was no comfort to be found in the world and they would all be fools to expect it.
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Amy Hempel |
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9acd64c
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The neighborhood drug dealer kicks out his wife. He moves in a girlfriend and the wife finds out. The wife lets herself back into the house and steals a hundred thousand dollars that the drug dealer can't report missing. The drug dealer's wife goes to India, where she sends her husband a cable: "The people here are poor so I gave them all your money."
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Amy Hempel |
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00fdc17
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I believe that 99 percent of what anyone does can effectively be postponed.
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Amy Hempel |
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a20c065
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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.
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Amy Hempel |
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6568472
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And what about the certainty I feel regarding you? You could say that an hour is not a lot to go on. But always, before, a thing didn't work because I was too young and too old. Too dumb and too smart. But I learn from my mistakes. The certainty I feel--it is something to hit back with. So in a manner of speaking, I now have a stick bigger than the stick I was beaten with. Except let's not think of it as something larger of the same type. M..
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Amy Hempel |
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b26fe2b
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Tell me things I won't mind forgetting," she said. 'Make it useless stuff or skip it."
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Amy Hempel |
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a15883c
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Yesterday, where someone had dumped a cat-scratched leather recliner in the weedy empty lot around the corner, an elderly man was found sitting in the chair, quietly disoriented. The recliner looked like a seat on an Amtrak train, in Coach. The man did not seem to know where he was, or how he got there, but he was not fearful, just quiet. He was able to recite his son's email address and list the son's many accomplishments to the police who..
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Amy Hempel |
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e2272dd
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It's the natural trajectory of a writing career that a writer becomes better at being herself.
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Amy Hempel |
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17d0fd1
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I am so suggestible. When Chatty asks if I am hungry, I say, "I could be." I would try to become the woman you wanted without even knowing I was trying. As it is, I am barely the woman I am."
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Amy Hempel |
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41b36bf
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Tutto quello che ho fatto con te era amore.
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Amy Hempel |
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6cefed0
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Pretty soon three sleeping bags formed a triangle in the master bedroom. The father was the hypotenuse. The girl asked him to brush out her hair, which he did while the boy ate a tangerine, peeling it up close to his face, inhaling the mist. Then he held each segment to the light to find seeds. In his lap, cat paws fluttered like dreaming eyes. "What"
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Amy Hempel |
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95922d4
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Some of us are silent sufferers of a noisy disease.
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suffering
quiet
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Amy Hempel |
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a15c4cf
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Here is what you do. You ease yourself into a tub of water, you ease yourself down. You lie back and wait for the ripples to smooth away. Then you take a deep breath, and slide your head under, and listen for the playfulness of your heart.
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Amy Hempel |
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651afbd
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For peace of mind I will lie about any thing at any time.
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Amy Hempel |
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87e21c8
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Ho esagerato ancora prima di cominciare, perche e vero: niente e mai grave quanto potrebbe essere.
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esagerare
gravità
verità
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Amy Hempel |
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c35ca61
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E penso a quel detto che ripetono sempre tutti: "la vita e dura... e poi muori". A dire il vero, non e affatto cosi. Questo lo dicono loro. La vita e dura: su questo hanno ragione. Ma quei giorni che dovrebbero essere la parte peggiore? Su questo si sbagliano. E' la tua vita, il resto della tua vita, la parte peggiore."
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pensare
sbagliare
vita
morte
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Amy Hempel |
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e00b89f
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Mi immaginavo noi due che cuocevamo le mele per Natale, quegli stupidi quadretti romantici alla Currier e Ives... pensavo per tutto il tempo: A volte quello che abbiamo passa per amore, quando invece avrei dovuto pensare: L'amore passa.
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immaginare
natale
quadro
romantico
coppia
tempo
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Amy Hempel |
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bd84379
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He turned off the freeway onto a wide commercial drive of franchised food and failing business. The
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Amy Hempel |
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ee9100b
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while the world worlds up at us." I"
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Amy Hempel |
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fe9f34f
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We keep wanting people to be different.
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Amy Hempel |
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bbf1cd1
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Marriageability" was the original title of "The Harvest."
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storytelling
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Amy Hempel |
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5f1ee64
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I would have written this next part into the story if anybody would have believed it. But who would have? I was there and I didn't believe it.
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storytelling
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Amy Hempel |
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bac88f5
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This is a good movie,' she said when snipers felled them both. I missed her already.
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Amy Hempel |
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379a64e
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It is just possible I will say I stayed the night. And who is there that can say that I did not?
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Amy Hempel |
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37c1203
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he married the most beautiful woman he ever saw and learned the irrelevance of beauty.
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Amy Hempel |
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fbec155
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Alcuni di noi soffrono in silenzio di un male rumoroso. E questo e quanto ho da dire sulla paura.
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rumore
silenzio
male
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Amy Hempel |