Amy Tan Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• We all become different readers in how we respond to books, why we need them, what we take from them. We become different in the questions that arise as we read, in the answers that we find, in the degree of satisfaction or unease we feel with those answers...In the hands of a different reader, the same story can be a different story.

  Amy Tan

  Book, Hands, Satisfaction

  4 Copy quote

• That was a wonderful period in my life. I mean, I didn't become an artist, but somebody let me do something I loved. What a luxury, to do something you love to do.

  Amy Tan

  Mean, Artist, Luxury

  "Amy Tan on Passion". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org.

  8 Copy quote

• I have a writer's memory, which makes everything worse than maybe it actually was.

  Amy Tan

  Memories

  "Author of The Joy Luck Club". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 28, 1996.

  9 Copy quote

• Only you pick that crab. Nobody else take it. I already know this. Everyone else want best quality. You thinking different.

  Amy Tan

  Jesus, Thinking, Quality

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club: A Novel”, p.161, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• Chaos is the penance for leisure.

  Amy Tan

  Penance, Leisure, Chaos

  Amy Tan (2001). “The Bonesetter's Daughter”, p.17, Penguin

  17 Copy quote

• Why do some memories live only on your tongue or in your nose? Why do others always stay in your heart?

  Amy Tan

  Memories, Heart, Noses

  Amy Tan (1992). “The Kitchen God's wife”, Thorndike Pr

  4 Copy quote

• I love and am loved, fully and freely, nothing expected, more than enough received.

  Amy Tan

  Inspiring, Enough, Expected

  Amy Tan (1995). “The Hundred Secret Senses: A Novel”, p.189, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• I had on a beautiful red dress, but what I saw was even more valuable. I was strong. I was pure. I had genuine thoughts inside that no one could see, that no one could ever take away from me. I was like the wind. -Lindo

  Amy Tan

  Beautiful, Strong, Wind

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.58, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

• Why do you think you are missing something you never had?

  Amy Tan

  Thinking, Missing, Missing Something

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.25, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• Clichés are static, the emotion behind them long spent. If you are tempted to use them, here is a saying of my mother’s: Fang pi bu-cho, cho pi bu-fang. Basically that translates to: "Loud farts don’t stink, and the really smelly ones don’t make a sound." In other words: When you’re full of beans, you just blow a lot of hot air. If you want to have a real impact, be deadly but silent. Oh, also recognize the difference between a bad cliché and a good quotation. My mother’s saying is a good quotation. You should use it often.

  Amy Tan

  Mother, Real, Blow

  6 Copy quote

• And now I have to stop. Because every time I remember this, I have to cry a little by myself. I don't know why something that made me so happy then feels so sad now. Maybe that is the way it is with the best memories.

  Amy Tan

  Memories, Littles, Way

  Amy Tan (1991). “The kitchen god's wife”, Random House, Inc.

  4 Copy quote

• how can the world in all its chaos come up with so many coincidences, so many similarities and exact opposites?

  Amy Tan

  Opposites, World, Chaos

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club: A Novel”, p.117, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• Secrets are kept from children, a lid on top of the soup kettle, so they do not boil over with too much truth.

  Amy Tan

  Children, Secret, Soup

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.237, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• It was a distorted form of inverse logic: If hopes never come true, then hope for what you don't want.

  Amy Tan

  Want, Logic, Form

  Amy Tan (1995). “The Hundred Secret Senses: A Novel”, p.15, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• My mother had a very difficult childhood, having seen her own mother kill herself. So she didnt always know how to be the nurturing mother that we all expect we should have.

  Amy Tan

  Mother, Should Have, Childhood

  "Author of The Joy Luck Club". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 28, 1996.

  7 Copy quote

• Placing on writers the responsibility to represent a culture is an onerous burden.

  Amy Tan

  Responsibility, Culture, Burden

  The Salon Interview, www.salon.com. November 12, 1995.

  7 Copy quote

• External success has to do with people who may see me as a model, or an example, or a representative. As much as I may dislike or want to reject that responsibility, this is something that comes with public success. It's important to give others a sense of hope that it is possible and you can come from really different places in the world and find your own place in the world that's unique for yourself.

  Amy Tan

  Responsibility, Unique, People

  American Acheivement interview, June 28, 1996.

  4 Copy quote

• A psychiatrist does not want you to wake up. He tells you to dream some more, to find the pond and pour more tears into it. And really, he's just another bird drinking from your misery.

  Amy Tan

  Dream, Drinking, Bird

  5 Copy quote

• We all had our miseries. But to despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable. -Suyuan

  Amy Tan

  Wish, Despair, Unbearable

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.24, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

• Because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones. You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh. -An-mei

  Amy Tan

  Mother, Skins, Flesh

  Amy Tan (2006). “The Joy Luck Club”, p.48, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• There are a lot of people who think that's what's needed to be successful is always being right, always being careful, always picking the right path.

  Amy Tan

  Successful, Thinking, People

  "Author of The Joy Luck Club". The Academy of Achievement, www.achievement.org. June 28, 1996.

  7 Copy quote

• Among writers, if you don't have a therapist, it's like saying you don't keep a journal or use the thesaurus. It's a natural accompaniment.

  Amy Tan

  Depression, Use, Mental Illness

  7 Copy quote

• For all these years I kept my mouth closed so selfish desires would not fall out. And because I remained quiet for so long now my daughter does not hear me... All these years I kept my true nature hidden, running along like a small shadow so nobody could catch me. And because I moved so secretly now my daughter does not see me... We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing; unheard and not hearing, unknown by others.

  Amy Tan

  Running, Daughter, Selfish

  4 Copy quote

• Writing what you wished was the most dangerous form of wishful thinking.

  Amy Tan

  Writing, Thinking, Form

  Amy Tan (2001). “The Bonesetter's Daughter”, p.25, Penguin

  9 Copy quote

• My sisters and I stand, arms around each other, laughind and wiping the tears from each others eyes. The flash of the Polaroid goes off and my family hands me the snapshot. My sisters and I watch quietly together, eager to see what develops. Ghe grey-greensurface changes to the bright colors of our three images, sharpening and deepening all at once. And although we don't speak, I know we all see it: Together we look like our mother. Her same eyes, her same mouth, open in suprise to see, her long-cherished wish.

  Amy Tan

  Mother, Eye, Hands

  4 Copy quote

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