Quotes by Aimee Bender - Page 1 | QuoteForever

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As a kid, I often figured it was good to be patient to a fault.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Be Patient
Patient
Figured
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I liked Hans Christian Andersen because the tales were so dark and tragic.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Tales
Tragic
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Granted, I'm someone who loves words. I've always loved poetry - so it's suited to me.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Granted
Loves
Suited
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Language is the ticket to plot and character, after all, because both are built out of language.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Plot
Ticket
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I really like feeling connected to people and feeling like I have a good, solid sense of empathy.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Solid
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I love food. I'm not a great cook, but I love to cook, and I like how different it is from writing.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Love Food Great
Great Cook
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For me as a person, friendships are incredibly important to me, but in writing, they can distract me.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Distract
Friendships
Incredibly
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I have trouble describing my own style, since it's sort of like describing my own eye color or something.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Describing
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I love the idea of numerology, but I don't really believe in it. But I like thinking about what numbers convey.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Numbers
Love Thinking Believe
Love Believe Thinking
Convey
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Writing can be a frightening, distressing business, and whatever kind of structure or buffer is available can help a lot.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Available
Distressing
Frightening
Structure
Buffer
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When language is treated beautifully and interestingly, it can feel good for the body: It's nourishing; it's rejuvenating.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Body
Feel Good
Good Body Feel
Good Feel Good Feel
Good Body Feel Good
Beautifully
Good Feel Good Body
Interestingly
Nourishing
Rejuvenating
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I love all the arts - so museums, theatre, music, walks near trees or by the ocean, time with people, psychological readings.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Ocean
Museums
Psychological
Walks
Love Time Music
Near
Readings
Trees
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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.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Lovely
Meadows
Lighter
Picnic
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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.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Adolescence
Horrible
Obsessed
Love Time People
Fraught
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I like the idea of a place that is dealing with painful, messy, frightening, and very human events that is also so beautiful and ethereal.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Frightening
Messy
Painful
Dealing
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As a kid, I liked making up stories, and I wrote a story about a kangaroo and a bat with Christy Chang, and she went on to become a surgeon.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Making Up
Bat
Christy
Liked
Surgeon
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Generally, I think most of my writing tends to have some kind of magical element to it. That's the way I can access the emotional life of the character.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Access
Emotional Life
Life Character Way
Element
Magical
Tends
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Novels are so much unrulier and more stressful to write. A short story can last two pages and then it's over, and that's kind of a relief. I really like balancing the two.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Pages
Relief
Short Story
Stressful
Balancing
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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.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Birthday
Happy Birthday
Happy
Smile
Cake
Childhood
Complicated
Happy Day
Load
Tempting
Because
Day
Emblem
Something
Symbol
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At readings, audience members sometimes ask if I keep writing past the two hours if I'm on a roll, but I don't. I figure that if I'm on a roll, it's partially because I know I'm about to stop.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Members
Audience Members
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I write on a very strict 2-hour-a-day schedule, and I really respond to structure and invented rules. So even if I'm finding out good information on a character, I will stop when I'm set to stop.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Strict
Structure
Respond
Schedule
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I did plays in college, and I have half of a play. But I'm kind of stuck. I keep revisiting it so maybe it will move somewhere. There's something about plays where you can feel that sense of artifice at any moment.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Artifice
Stuck
Moment Feel Will
Revisiting
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I noticed, when I taught elementary school, how true the squeaky wheel thing is, and how endearing squeaky wheels can be! Because when you're being a squeaky wheel, you're also really letting people know who you are.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Elementary School
Endearing
Wheels
People True Know
Elementary
Letting
Noticed
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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.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Grounded
World Me New
Magical
New Thing
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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.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Glad
Marketplace
Rely
Salary
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There's a spectrum of those moments of connection and the moments we fail to connect, going from super-large successes to failures. Success would be love, I guess, and failure could still be love, but the bad side; and loss.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Loss
Spectrum
Love Success Failure
Connect
Fail
Successes
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I find I can write for two lines, and then I have nothing else to say. For me, the only way to find something comes through the sentence level and sticking with the sentences that give a subtle feeling that there's something more to say.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Lines
Subtle
Me Way Nothing
Sentence
Sticking
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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.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Humbling
Good Myself Me
Earlier
Failed
Reminder
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In terms of foods for me, I think I have more of the usual associations - foods from childhood that I associate with care and love, from relatives or special restaurants like the kind elderly man who dusted seasoning salt on French fries at the corner burger joint.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Childhood
Elderly
French Fries
Restaurants
Salt
Seasoning
Special
Usual
Love Man Me
Associate
Burger
French
Corner
Foods
Joint
Terms
Relatives
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I get a little myopic in the act of doing any writing. I think I'm not as interested or not as able to write about balance, because I think there's something I want to try to get at. I'm trying to get at something about the experience of growing up or about families.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Myopic
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Some creative writing programs seem evil, but my experience at Irvine was totally the opposite, where I feel like they were really good at focusing in on each writers voice and setting. When I felt like I was obligated to write a story that was more typical, no one really liked it.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Creative Writing
Setting
Typical
Opposite
Focusing
Programs
Obligated
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I don't eschew autobiographical writing, but I'm not interested in mine to be so straightforward. The things that tend to move me the most are often those that I have to figure out its meaning for myself. The human being's ability to make a metaphor to describe a human experience is just really cool.
Aimee Bender / Novelist
Human Experience
Metaphor
Not Interested
Straightforward
Autobiographical
Describe
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