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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.

Aimee Bender

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.
AIMEE BENDER

Again Away Beginning Each Groups Other Tear Throat
Kissing George was a little like rolling in caramel after spending years surviving off rice sticks.
AIMEE BENDER

Kiss People Rice Rolling Stick Survive Year
I was right at the edge of their circle, like the tail of a Q…
AIMEE BENDER

Circle Edge Like Right Tail
You can ruin anything if you focus at it.
AIMEE BENDER

Anything Focus Ruin
While she cut the mushrooms, she cried more than she had at the grave.
AIMEE BENDER

Cry Cut Cutting Grave Moving Mushroom Simple
I felt the crumpled paper that had taken the place of my lungs expand as if released from a fist.
AIMEE BENDER

Expand Fist List Lung Paper Release Taken
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.
AIMEE BENDER

Ghost Grab Hand Light Self Step Street
My eyelids are my own private cave, he murmured. That I can go to anytime I want.
AIMEE BENDER

Anytime Cave Eyelid Private Want
It’s a pleasure to dive into Hirshberg’s storytelling skills in American Morons.
AIMEE BENDER

Country Dive Moron Pleasure Skill Story Telling
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.
AIMEE BENDER

Ask Believe Cold Fire Pain Part Room Why
Language is the ticket to plot and character, after all, because both are built out of language.
AIMEE BENDER

Built Character Language Out Plot Ticket
He was also removing all traces of any tiny leftover parts, and suddenly a ritual which I’d always found incestuous and gross seemed to me more like a desperate act on Joseph’s part to get out, to leave, to extract every little last remnant and bring it into open air.
AIMEE BENDER

Carefully Concentrate Desperate Detail Intimate Leave Open Part Remnant Ritual Time
I want to be violated by insight.
AIMEE BENDER

Insight Violate Want
If everything kept to its normal progression, we would live with the sadness-cry and then walk-but what really breaks us cleanest are the losses that happen out of order.
AIMEE BENDER

Break Clean Cry Everything Happen Lose Normal Order Parent Progressive Walk
I admired that stride; it was like he folded space in two with it.
AIMEE BENDER

Admire Fold Like Space Stride Two
You try, you seem totally nuts, you go underground.
AIMEE BENDER

Nuts Trying Seem Totally Underground
That at the same time of this very intimate act of concentrating so carefully on the details of our mother’s palm and fingertips.
AIMEE BENDER

Air Careful Concentrate Detail Intimate Mother Palm Same Time
It was like we were exchanging codes, on how to be a father and a daughter, like we’d read about it in a manual, translated from another language, and were doing our best with what we could understand.
AIMEE BENDER

Code Daughter Details exchange Father Language Read
It is all about numbers. It is all about sequence. It’s the mathematical logic of being alive.
AIMEE BENDER

Everything Kept Life Logical Loss Mathematics Normal Number Sadness
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.
AIMEE BENDER

Bulb Comfort Company Good Light Living Room Took Warmest Yellow
It is so often surprising, who rescues you at your lowest moments.
AIMEE BENDER

Lowest Moment Rescue Surprise
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.
AIMEE BENDER

Birthday Cake Childhood Complicate Happy Just Load Something Symbolic Tempting
It’s such a fraught and exciting and kind of horrible time.
AIMEE BENDER

Excite Fraught Horrible Kind Such Time
I watched as she added a question mark at the end. Arc, line, space, dot.
AIMEE BENDER

Add Dot Line Question Space Watch
Mom flipped through the magazines like the pages needed to be slapped.
AIMEE BENDER

Flip Magazine Mom Need Page Slap
The stories themselves haunt, they stick around, they linger, inhabiting a little corner of the reader’s brain and resurfacing to evoke mystery or sadness or longing.
AIMEE BENDER

Around Brain Corner Evoke Inhabiting Mystery Reader Resurfacing Sad Stick Story
It seemed to happen in springs, the revealing of things.
AIMEE BENDER

Happen Reveal Seem Spring

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.

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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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