Sing to It Quotes

“At the end, he said, No metaphors! Nothing is like anything else. Except he said to me before he said that, Make your hands a hammock for me. So there was one. He said, Not even the rain—he quoted the poet—not even the rain has such small hands. So there was another. At the end, I wanted to comfort him. But what I said was, Sing to it. The Arab proverb: When danger approaches, sing to it. Except I said to him before I said that, No metaphors! No one is like anyone else. And he said, Please. So—at the end, I made my hands a hammock for him. My arms the trees.”
― Amy Hempel, Sing to It: New Stories

“At a certain point, it would seem, you have to stop caring, and stop trying to protect what someone else is set to destroy.”
― Amy Hempel, Sing to It: New Stories

“Yesterday, where someone had dumped a cat-scratched leather recliner in the weedy empty lot around the corner, an elderly man was found sitting in the chair, quietly disoriented. The recliner looked like a seat on an Amtrak train, in Coach. The man did not seem to know where he was, or how he got there, but he was not fearful, just quiet. He was able to recite his son’s email address and list the son’s many accomplishments to the police whom someone called to help. They were kind when they contacted the man’s son in another state. But this won’t go well, I thought, and chose not to follow the story.”
― Amy Hempel, Sing to It: New Stories

“What if you are the last one standing when others have left the concert, the theater, the crime-addled city, the busted love affair? What if you look for a sign and a sign doesn’t come. Or a sign comes but you miss it. What if you have to make a decision on your own and it feels like a body blow, falling back on yourself.”
― Amy Hempel, Sing to It: New Stories

“I’m just headin’ off the coast aimlessly. I haven’t had much impact. Nothing but depression. Tropical, but nonetheless, depression. Headin’ out to sea.”
― Amy Hempel, Sing to It: New Stories

“I told my old friend Julia that Tropical Storm Julia had just slammed into the Georgia coast. She said, “We’ll have to watch me closely as I seem to be gathering strength.”
― Amy Hempel, Sing to It: New Stories

“You want to be choosy about what you let into your soul when you are likely not long for this world.”
― Amy Hempel, Sing to It: New Stories

“I bought packets of wildflower and zinnia seeds, and sprinkled them around the falling-down house. Maybe the rain we can expect tonight will do something about it.”
― Amy Hempel, Sing to It: New Stories

“When you discover something long after others have known it, there is a heady contentment that comes.”
― Amy Hempel, Sing to It: New Stories

“She was many years older than my husband, running on the fumes of her beauty.”
― Amy Hempel, Sing to It: New Stories

“She traveled the world, and turned into the person she could be in other places with people she would never see again.”
― Amy Hempel, Sing to It: New Stories

“The striking part of his communication is what he doesn't say, when saying something would make a difference.”
― Amy Hempel, Sing to It: New Stories

“They knew me as the one who got jacked up on rage and didn't know what to do with it, until a dog dug a ball from a corner of his kennel and brought it to my side, as thought to ask, "Have you thought of this?”
― Amy Hempel, Sing to It: New Stories

“I like parting shots; you can’t take them seriously and they’re often pretty funny.”
― Amy Hempel, Sing to It: New Stories