Ms. Hempel Chronicles Quotes

“That is what is marvelous about school, she realized: when you are in school, your talents are without number, and your promise is boundless. You ace a math test: you will one day work for NASA. The choir director asks you to sing a solo at the holiday concert: you are the next Mariah Carey. You score a goal, you win a poetry contest, you act in a play. And you are everything at once: actor, astronomer, gymnast, star. But at a certain point, you begin to feel your talents dropping away, like feathers from a molting bird. Cello lessons conflict with soccer practice. There aren't enough spots on the debating team. Calculus remains elusive. Until the day you realize that you cannot think of a single thing you are wonderful at.”
― Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Ms. Hempel Chronicles

“If you wanted to kidnap someone, what would you use?" she asked Amit. They were lying in bed, with the lights off. To knock them unconscious. So that you could drag them into the back of your van."
Chloroform, I guess."
Really?" She brightened. It made her happy that the person she was marrying would commit crimes in the same way as she would.”
― Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Ms. Hempel Chronicles

“When you are in school, your talents are without number, and your promise is boundless...But at a certain point, you begin to feel your talents dropping away, like feathers from a molting bird.”
― Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Ms. Hempel Chronicles

“This was the feeling that Ms. Hempel couldn't shake: a conviction that she spent her days among people at the age when they are most purely themselves. How could she not be depleted when she came home, having been exposed for hours, without protection, to all those thrumming radiant selves? Here they were, just old enough to have discovered their souls, but not yet dulled by the ordinary act of survival, not yet practiced in dissembling.”
― Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Ms. Hempel Chronicles

“But that's what I mean: you're Ms. Hempel forever. At least to us.”
― Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Ms. Hempel Chronicles