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 BENDERListen. Look. Desire is a house. Desire needs closed space. Desire runs out of doors or windows, or slats or pinpricks, it can’t fit under the sky, too large. Close the doors. Close the windows.
More Aimee Bender Quotes
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I am not happy, help me — like a message in a bottle sent in each meal to the eater, and I got it. I got the message.
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Mom flipped through the magazines like the pages needed to be slapped.
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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.
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As soon as you laugh from nerves or make a joke or say something just to say something or get all involved with the bushes, then you blow open a window in your house of desire and it can’t heat up as well. Cold draft comes in.
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I was with them for all of it, but more like an echo than a participant.
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As a writer you ask yourself to dream while awake.
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That she might not actually know us seemed the humblest thing a mother could admit.
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Large meadows are lovely for picnics and romping, but they are for the lighter feelings. Meadows do not make me want to write.
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I’m obsessed with adolescence. I love to write about people in their 20s.
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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.
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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.
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You try, you seem totally nuts, you go underground.
AIMEE BENDER