on writing - amy hempel

It's all about the sentences.  It's about the way the sentences move in
the paragraphs.  It's about the rhythm.  It's about the ambiguity.  It's
about the way emotion, in difficult circumstances, gets captured in
language.  It's about instants of consciousness.  It's about besieged
consciousness.  It's about love trouble.  It's about death.  It's about
suicide.  It's about the body.  It's about skepticism.  It's against
sentimentality.  It's about cheap sentiment.  It's about regret.  It's
about survival.  It's about the sentences used to enact and defend
survival.

- Amy Hempel, the intro to The Collected Stories