Quotes from Aimee Bender

Several of the girls at the party had had sex, something which sounded appealing but only if it could happen with blindfolds in a time warp plus amnesia

There's a gift in your lap and it's beautifully wrapped and it's not your birthday. You feel wonderful, you feel like somebody knows you're alive, you feel fear because it could be a bomb, because you think you're that important.

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

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

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.

It was the kind of conversation you could only hold in whispers.

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.

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

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

My lover is experiencing reverse evolution.

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

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.

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

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

For me, even in my first book, the pleasures of writing anything magical is that it has to be physical. It has to be grounded and very much in this world. Then, I get to play with all the consequences of this new thing.

I love the idea of numerology, but I don't really believe in it. But I like thinking about what numbers convey.

I love food. I'm not a great cook, but I love to cook, and I like how different it is from writing.

One thing I don't want to feel is marketplace pressure, so I'm really glad I enjoy teaching because I can rely on that for a salary. I think it would be such a different game if I had to write a book that has to sell well.

I think teaching keeps me honest because if I'm up in front of a class talking about what I think is important about fiction while knowing I myself have just failed to do that hours earlier at my computer - it's a good and humbling reminder.

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

after all, she had birthed us alone, diapered and fed us, helped us with homework, kissed and hugged us, poured her love into us. That she might not actually know us seemed the humblest thing a mother could admit.

I've noticed this: when it's the first date, and you fuck, the guy hold you much better than he does the next few times. The first date, you're sort of the stand-in for whomever he loved last, before he fully realizes that you're not her, and so you get all this nice residue emotion. I felt cherished, tucked into his belly, like we'd known each other for years and I was his wonderful girl and we both slept great.

But what I kept wondering about is this: that first second when she felt her skirt burning, what did she think? Before she knew it was candles, did she think she'd done it herself? With the amazing turns of her hips, and the warmth of the music inside her, did she believe, for even one glorious second, that her passion had arrived?

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.