Bender Quotes & Sayings

There will be no beautiful widow with Persian eyes sitting at your grave. And teary-eyed kids won't be asking: "Papa, papa, can you hear us? — Ilya Ilf

BENDER: Dying sucks butt! How do you living beings cope with mortality? LEELA: Violent outbursts. AMY: General sluttiness. FRY: Thanks to denial, I'm immortal! BENDER: Damn it, I'm supposed to be perfect. Inspector 5 gave me his blessing! [He pulls out his scrap of paper and looks at it.] How could he bring me into this world knowing I'm gonna die? ZOIDBERG: So you wish you were never born, maybe? BENDER: Yes, anything less than immortality is a complete waste of time! ZOIDBERG: Then suicide it is. Step into my office. I'll give you a nice Kervorking. This — Courtland Lewis

You know, people have actually changed the way they think about nuclear weapons now, post-Cold War, post-9/11. The threat of nuclear weapons is not so much Russia attacking the United States, China. It's not a state-to-state - it's obviously terrorism; it's proliferation. — Lawrence Bender

I've noticed this: when it's the first date, and you fuck, the guy hold you much better than he does the next few times. The first date, you're sort of the stand-in for whomever he loved last, before he fully realizes that you're not her, and so you get all this nice residue emotion. I felt cherished, tucked into his belly, like we'd known each other for years and I was his wonderful girl and we both slept great. — Aimee Bender

I will never die, thought the cake to itself, in even simpler terms, as cakes did not have sophisticated use of language. — Aimee Bender

Language is the ticket to plot and character, after all, because both are built out of language. — Aimee Bender

Each of us has some unique capability waiting for realization. Every person is valuable in his own existence, for himself alone ... each of us can bring to fruition these innate, God-given abilities. — George H. Bender

Just 'cause you're following a
well-marked trail don't mean
that whoever made it knew where
they were goin'. — Texas Bix Bender

I'm a man who got out, and moved on. I'm a fucking survivor. - Oliver — Melissa Bender

PLease, do not visualize that we exist above you such as in heaven. The concepts above and below are products of your mind. The soul does not swing upwards. It exists in the center and orients itself in every direction. — Hans Bender

I, like balloon animal hacks everywhere, can only make one animal so far. It is a LEGO version of the Island of Dr. Moreau, wherein I have brick-engineered a pig-camel, a dog-camel, and a camel with wheels. These monstrosities are quickly torn apart, and I wonder if I have some unresolved camel issues. — Jonathan Bender

I used to think death might be hidden somewhere on our bodies.
Tucked behind the pupil like a coin, slid beneath the thumb nail, ribbon-wrapped around a wrist bone. A sharp, dark sliver; a loose, pale pellet. Each person different. Each lifespan set. On the day of your death, it melts out through your entire body, a warm, broken bath bead. Until then, it waits-sealed and silent. — Aimee Bender

You're the perfect girl', he said, rubbing his chin. 'You expect nothing. — Aimee Bender

Mom loved my brother more. Not that she didn't love me - I felt the wash of her love every day, pouring over me, but it was a different kind, siphoned from a different, and tamer, body of water. I was her darling daughter; Joseph was her it. — Aimee Bender

I went searching in a foreign land and found my way home. — Sue Bender

Mom flipped through the magazines like the pages needed to be slapped. — Aimee Bender

She bops around really energetically but she's also still. Like she's moving her torso but her feet don't move, and then sometimes she'll take one step, and it feels like a thesis statement. Like it is a topic sentence about her butt. — Aimee Bender

Glen Hirshberg's stories are haunting, absolutely, but not only because of the content
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. It's a pleasure to dive into Hirshberg's storytelling skills in American Morons. — Aimee Bender

I'm not a rock star, I'm not Seane Corne or Shiva Rea or Rodney Yee or Baron (Baptiste) or John Friend, and thank God, because there's just too much risk of getting hit by flying tomatoes if you stick out that much. — Beryl Bender Birch

The word "journal" has in its root the word jour, French for day. A journey was the distance that could be traveled in a day. A journal, therefore, consisted of the writing one recorded per day. — Sheila Bender

Every species embodies a solution to some environmental challenge, and some of these solutions are breathtaking in their elegance. — Linda Bender

My father usually agreed with her requests, because stamped in his two-footed stance and jaw was the word Provider, and he loved her the way a bird-watcher's heart leaps when he hears the call of the roseate spoonbill, a fluffy pink wader, calling its lilting coo-coo from the mangroves. — Aimee Bender

Free yourself from the rigid conduct of tradition and open yourself to the new forms of probability. — Hans Bender

Film is a very collaborative medium. If you're smart enough, you learn how to maintain your vision while drawing resourcefully from all the people around you. — Lawrence Bender

I always tell people, I can't teach you yoga. Nobody can teach you yoga. I can't teach you to teach yoga. All I can do is teach you a set of instructions and if you follow these instructions, hopefully it will lead you to the experience of yoga. — Beryl Bender Birch

finding the time to practice takes a little effort and thought. For many of us, already feeling maxed out in terms of time constraints, being told that we need to set aside more time five days a week to do something else is in itself stressful. As you make your wellness and wholeness a priority, you will find it becomes easier to protect your practice by creating a special place and time in which to work on yourself. — Beryl Bender Birch

Much can they praise the trees so straight and high, The sailing pine,the cedar proud and tall, The vine-prop elm, the poplar never dry, The builder oak, sole king of forests all, The aspin good for staves, the cypress funeral, The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors And poets sage, the fir that weepest still, The yew obedient to the bender's will, The birch for shafts, the sallow for the mill, The myrrh sweet-bleeding in the bitter wound, The warlike beech, the ash for nothing ill, The fruitful olive, and the platane round, The carver holm, the maple seldom inward sound. — Edmund Spenser

I was with them for all of it, but more like an echo than a participant. — Aimee Bender

The phone is about the same size as a cigarette pack. It's no surprise to me that the traditional cigarette lighter in many cars has turned into the space we use to recharge our phones. They are kin. The phone, like the cigarette, let's the texter/former smoker drop out of any social interaction for a second to get a break and make a little love to the beautiful object. We need something, people. We can't live propless. — Aimee Bender

I had one of those light bulb 'a ha' moments while screening 'Good Will Hunting' in Camp David in 1998 - Madeleine Albright and the Clintons were there, and I just became really inspired by all of these amazing people. I left the screening asking myself what I could do. — Lawrence Bender

There are students that are scattered, who need to see something through to the finish, but I would say there are possibly more who do not entertain the leaps of the mind that need to be nurtured, and this desire to finish becomes more about being a good student than about finishing something interesting. Where does work ethic fit in with writing? I think that's pretty complicated from one writer to the next. You need some kind of work ethic, but what does it look like for you? — Aimee Bender

We write because something inside says we must and we can no longer ignore that voice. — Sheila Bender

You try, you seem totally nuts, you go underground. — Aimee Bender

To be sure, governments will remain critical to any comprehensive effort to save our planet. — Lawrence Bender

Now she and the widow had something in common, though loss did not pass from one person to another like a baton. It just formed a bigger and bigger pool of carriers. And she thought, scratching the coarseness of the horses's mane, it did not leave, once lodged, did it? It simply changed form, and asked repeatedly for attention and care as each year revealed a new knot to cry out and consider, smaller, sure, but never gone ... Out of my body, these beautiful monsters. — Aimee Bender

It is all about numbers. It is all about sequence. It's the mathematical logic of being alive. If everything kept to its normal progression, we would live with the sadness
cry and then walk
but what really breaks us cleanest are the losses that happen out of order. — Aimee Bender

Not getting bored of my own story and/or character is one of the main struggles I have had with novel writing, and I have put to bed big chunks of work that just didn't sustain my interest. — Aimee Bender

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a raindance. — Texas Bix Bender

My lover is experiencing reverse evolution. — Aimee Bender

Change comes from dedicated, ordinary people, in the trenches, serving a cause greater than self. — Linda Bender

Don't smile," he said. — Aimee Bender

Tonight feels like a board game co-designed by M. C. Escher on a bender and Stephen King in a fever. — David Mitchell

Mom's smiles were so full of feeling that people leaned back a little when she greeted them. It was hard to know just how much was being offered. — Aimee Bender

Then he sat down at the table of a larger man, a man with tattoos but the old kind, before tattoos became dainty and about spiritual life. The man wore tattoos from the time when tattoos meant you liked to kick people around. — Aimee Bender

It's the enjoyment of every step in the process of doing; everything, not only the isolated piece we label art. If accomplishing is the only goal, all that it takes to reach that goal is too slow, too fatiguing
an obstacle to what you want to achieve. If you want to rush the accomplishment, it is an inevitable disappointment. Then you rush to something else. The disappointment is reaped over and over again. But if every step is pleasant, then the accomplishment becomes even more, because it is nourished by what is going on. — Sue Bender

That," she said, "is a little closer to how I imagine it works. Whether or not you pray has absolutely nothing to do with the person to your left. It's like saying you shouldn't get the moon in your window, or else the other cars wouldn't get the moon in their windows. But everyone gets the moon. It's not an option, to not have the moon in your window. You just see it. It's there."
She bit her lip. The window in the office grew golden with late afternoon.
"Half the world can't see the moon," said the doctor.
"It's not the greatest example," said the rabbi. — Aimee Bender

always close by when you're in a tight squeeze.
Dn't let the sun set on a quarrel with a pard.
A good pard will at least pretend — Texas Bix Bender

She was tired these days because she was having job trouble too; her trouble meant she did not know how she could be useful in her life. Dad's job trouble was he had too much to do with his life. Sometimes I just wanted them to even it out but I couldn't think of how. — Aimee Bender

I'd stopped waving to passengers in cars by then- I'd grown suspicious of people and all the complications of interior lives- so I sat and watched and rode and thought, and as soon as the bus doors opened, we all rolled out the doorand split apart like billiard balls. — Aimee Bender

I watched as she added a question mark at the end. Arc, line, space, dot. — Aimee Bender

During the descent, she gave the doily to the man across the aisle, worried about his ailing son, and the needlework was so elegant it made him feel better just to hold it. 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. This is why everyone who eats a Whopper leaves a little more depressed than they were when they came in. — Aimee Bender

Sometimes, she said, mostly to herself, I feel I do not know my children ...
It was a fleeting statement, one I didn't think she'd hold on to; after all, she had birthed us alone, diapered and fed us, helped us with homework, kissed and hugged us, poured her love into us. That she might not actually know us seemed the humblest thing a mother could admit. — Aimee Bender

And I get refill number three or four and the wine is making my bones loose and it's giving my hair a red sheen and my breasts are blooming and my eyes feel sultry and wise and the dress is water. — Aimee Bender

I think it's really important to create spiritual revolutionaries. — Beryl Bender Birch

I just like the feeling of finding the right word in my mind and employing it. I get pleasure from that feeling. I prefer language to gesture. I figured other people might, too. — Aimee Bender

There is nothing worse than a man in the throws of an ether bender. — Hunter S. Thompson

Dad lost his job. Then he got a new job. Then he got his old job back and went back to it. They were all in the same building. — Aimee Bender

Their offense is shakier than Katherine Hepburn after an all-night espresso bender at Starbucks. — Dennis Miller

He had a good face to him, something chunky in his nose that I could get behind. — Aimee Bender

Well, the truth is, vacations are pointless anyway, because you always have to come back, so you might as well save time, skip the middle step, and stay put in the first place. — Aimee Bender

Animals suffer both emotionally and physically, but they don't suffer metaphysically. That is, they don't suffer about suffering, don't get thrown into spiritual confusion by it, or fall out of connection with the divine because of it. — Linda Bender

Animals don't know exactly what will happen when they die any more than we do. In the absence of specific knowledge, they simply trust. They trust death the way they trust life: as participation in the Source. What will happen when they die must be okay because what is happening now is okay. — Linda Bender

This reminded him of Alvis Bender's contention that stories were like nations - Italy, a great epic poem, Britain, a thick novel, America, a brash motion picture in technicolor ... — Jess Walter

A gossip is someone who's the knife of the party. — Morris Bender

Stolen kisses require an accomplice. — Texas Bix Bender

The world can ask you to participate, but it's a day-today decision if you want to agree to that proposal. — Aimee Bender

It was closing in on midnight, the kind of midnight you only get on Uranus after a three day bender. Ultramarine fog reeking of ethanol and neon and some passing whore's rosewater. Snow piled up like bodies in tbhe street. Twenty-seven moons lighting up what ought to be a respectable witching hour so you can't help but see yourself staring back in every slick glowpink skyscraper. — Catherynne M Valente

In the controversy that followed the prince's remarks, his most staunch defender was professor John Taylor, a scholar whose work I had last noticed when he gave good reviews to the psychokinetic (or whatever) capacities of the Israeli conjuror and fraud Uri Geller. The heir to the throne seems to possess the ability to surround himself - perhaps by some mysterious ultramagnetic force? - with every moon-faced spoon-bender, shrub-flatterer, and water-diviner within range. — Christopher Hitchens

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

[ ... ]when he closed his eyes, the torrent of longing waiting inside was so thick he thought he might drown in it. — Aimee Bender

At lunch you order steamed vegetables because you're remembering that you have a heart too. You feel humbled by your heart, it works so hard. You want to thank it. You give your heart a little pat — Aimee Bender

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

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

What I would say to filmmakers, if I may be so bold or so arrogant, is to draw inspiration from other filmmakers, but go to the place in your own gut where everything is nothing. That's a very Zen thing to say, but that place of nothing is where real creativity comes out of. — Lawrence Bender

Satisfaction comes from giving up wishing I was somewhere else or doing something else. — Sue Bender

Your eyes shine," he said. "How do they do that?"
"Blood," she said. — Aimee Bender

Because we tend to equate intelligence with language
particularly the ability to use language to think and communicate abstractions
it is natural to conclude that animals are, on the whole, a lot less intelligent than we are. — Linda Bender

It's been ingrained in me, from my parents and others, this idea of making a difference in the world. — Lawrence Bender

I started teaching yoga in 1974 in Colorado, I was living in Winter Park, and I started teaching skiers. At that point I was teaching more of the Sivananda system and just pushing it up a little bit to make it a little more rajasic a little more active, a little more physical. People would come, and feel great, and by the time I left Colorado in 1980 I'd taught pretty much everyone in town - the ski patrol, ski instructors, the bar owners. — Beryl Bender Birch

Things you create with your mind are always part of your postmortal life, whether they seem real or not. — Hans Bender

Nature" doesn't really have intentions, per se. Nature is a drunk waking up from a weekend bender, ambling through a messy kitchen in a pair of mismatched slippers, seeing its car in the neighbor's pool and saying, "Ah good. It was dirty. Just the thing. — Pat Connid

God asks husbands to love their wives enough to die for them. He asks wives to love their husbands enough to live for them. — Betty S. Bender

Last day I saw him human, he was sad about the world. — Aimee Bender

I felt her come by later, as I was dozing off. Her standing, by my bed. The depth of shadow of a person felt behind closed eyelids. — Aimee Bender

Therefore, the general consensus is that diets should provide about 55 per cent of energy from carbohydrates, 30 per cent from fat, and 15 per cent from protein. — David Bender

Nothing meant anything that couldn't be turned instantly into its opposite by any competent spin-doctor or spoon-bender. History and language had become so flexible, wrenched back and forth to suit each new agenda, that it seemed as if they might just simply snap in half and leave us floundering in a sea of mad Creationist revisions and greengrocers' punctuation. — Alan Moore

A skeptic is a person who, when he sees the handwriting on the wall, claims it is a forgery. — Morris Bender

You aren't interrupting my life; you're just making it hard. — Mikaela Bender

YOU'RE IN MY MOUTH, I said. GET OUT OF MY MOUTH. — Aimee Bender

When we sleep together, he holds me like he loves me. I've noticed this: when it's the first date, and you fuck, the guy holds you much better than he does the next few times. The first date, you're sort of a stand-in for whomever he loved last, before he fully realizes you're not her, so you get all this nice residue emotion. — Aimee Bender

I think it's good to smile at everybody so that everyone knows you love everyone. It's good for human pacifism. — Aimee Bender

The animals feel that this urgency is mutual. Their own suffering has made them aware of human suffering. More frequent contact with us has sensitized them to what troubles us. They feel our anxiety and our confusion and, most of all, our loneliness. The pain of being disconnected from the Earth, from each other, from our fellow creatures, and from the Source of all life is the worst pain they can imagine, and they are concerned about us. They understand even better than we do that the suffering we inflict on them is an expression of our own suffering, and that their physical situation cannot get better unless the human spiritual condition gets better. They want to help. — Linda Bender

Jesus Christ on a six-day wine bender. — Ian Tregillis

It's easy to see things you're lookin' for. The trick is to see things you're not looking for. — Texas Bix Bender

There are definitely strictly independent movies. 'Gummo' is one. Another is one I made, 'Fresh,' a $3 million movie which Boaz Yakin directed. — Lawrence Bender

Simplicity hinges as much on cutting nonessential features as on adding helpful ones. — Walter Bender

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

I want to be violated by insight. — Aimee Bender

I didn't mind the quiet stretches. It was like we were trying out the idea of being side by side. — Aimee Bender

You didn't have to say it. It's written all over your face. You think more of that oversized iron-bender than you do of me. — Karen Witemeyer