Amy Tan Quote

My mother would say it is literally ghost writers who come to me (Tan is the author of what became T...
AMY TAN

We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that’s like saying you can never change ...
AMY TAN

Fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention.
AMY TAN

If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.
AMY TAN

In America nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you.
AMY TAN

With each passing day, I didn't lose hope. I fought to have more.
AMY TAN

Memory feeds imagination.
AMY TAN

You see what power is - holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them!
AMY TAN

At the beginning of my career as a writer, I felt I knew nothing of Chinese culture. I was writing a...
AMY TAN

Our uniqueness makes us special, makes perception valuable - but it can also make us lonely. This lo...
AMY TAN

Writing is an extreme privilege but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a...
AMY TAN

When you read about the lives of other people, people of different circumstances or similar circumst...
AMY TAN

People talk about this 'bucket list': 'I need to go to this country, I need to skydive.&...
AMY TAN

My parents had very high expectations. They expected me to get straight A's from the time I was ...
AMY TAN

It's both rebellion and conformity that attack you with success.
AMY TAN

I have survivor skills. Some of that is superficial - what I present to people outwardly - but what ...
AMY TAN

I was intelligent enough to make up my own mind. I not only had freedom of choice, I had freedom of ...
AMY TAN

I think I've always been somebody, since the deaths of my father and brother, who was afraid to ...
AMY TAN

There are a lot of people who think that's what's needed to be successful is always being ri...
AMY TAN

I write because I know that one day I will die, and thus I should experience as many deliberate obse...
AMY TAN

My grandmother. She's someone I never met, and I would've loved to have met her. She's b...
AMY TAN

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

Until the age of five, my parents spoke to me in Chinese or a combination of Chinese and English, bu...
AMY TAN

I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the sam...
AMY TAN

No one can travel your own road for you; you must travel it for yourself. My faith in this stems fro...
AMY TAN

I saw my mother in a different light. We all need to do that. You have to be displaced from what'...
AMY TAN

Words to me were magic. You could say a word and it could conjure up all kinds of images or feelings...
AMY TAN

God, life changes faster than you think.
AMY TAN

And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant...
AMY TAN

The forbidden things were a great influence on my life. I was forbidden from reading A Catcher in th...
AMY TAN

Saving Fish From Drowning
AMY TAN

Whenever my mother talks to me, she begins the conversation as if we were already in the middle of a...
AMY TAN

Language is the tool of my trade -and I use them all - all the Englishes I grew up with
AMY TAN

I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the sa...
AMY TAN

Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from th...
AMY TAN

I am like a falling star who has finally found her place next to another in a lovely constellation, ...
AMY TAN

People think it's a terrible tragedy when somebody has Alzheimer's. But in my mother's case, it's di...
AMY TAN

Whenever I'm with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines. Th...
AMY TAN

When my daughter looks at me, she sees a small old lady. That is because she sees only with her outs...
AMY TAN

I'm open to reading almost anything - fiction, nonfiction - as long as I know from the first sen...
AMY TAN

There is this myth, that America is a melting pot, but what happens in assimilation is that we end u...
AMY TAN

My mother believed in curses, karma, good luck, bad luck, feng shui. Her amorphous set of beliefs sh...
AMY TAN

My breakfast is usually a wholegrain cereal or porridge, with walnuts sprinkled in it, berries, a ta...
AMY TAN

I felt ashamed of being different and ashamed of feeling that way.
AMY TAN

I am an American, steeped in American values. But I know on an emotional level what it means to be o...
AMY TAN

No one in my family was a reader of literary fiction. So, I didn't have encouragement, but I did...
AMY TAN

Whenever I'm with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines.
AMY TAN

You remember only what you want to remember. You know only what your heart allows you to know.
AMY TAN

I loved fairy tales when I was a kid. Grimm. The grimmer the better. I loved gruesome gothic tales a...
AMY TAN

I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried ...
AMY TAN

My mother's openness has remained inspiring to me. I strive to be a skeptic, in the best sense o...
AMY TAN

Mothers have this huge influence, and I feel like they're always teaching us from the day we'...
AMY TAN

The name startled me,
AMY TAN

I hid my deepest feelings so well I forgot where I placed them.
AMY TAN

Sure I loved him - too much. And he loved me, only not enough. I just want someone who thinks I'm nu...
AMY TAN

That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secrets.
AMY TAN

I had on a beautiful red dress, but what I saw was even more valuable. I was strong. I was pure. I h...
AMY TAN

Chance is the first step you take, luck is what comes afterward.
AMY TAN

What do you think was the first sound to become a word, a meaning?...

I imagined two peop...
AMY TAN

No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social real...
AMY TAN

Poetry. I read Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Jane Hirschfield. I like to read Billy Collins out...
AMY TAN

Almost every month we have 20 to 30 patients needing a recovery room.
AMY TAN

A mother is always the beginning. She is how things begin.
AMY TAN

If I look upon my whole life, I cannot think of another time when I felt more comfortable: when I ha...
AMY TAN

Chaos is the penance for leisure.
AMY TAN

That is the way it is with a wound. The wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurti...
AMY TAN

We are the kind of people who obsess over one word, ... but we have only one shot to get it right in...
AMY TAN

I would never require anyone to read any book. That seems antithetical to why we read - which is to ...
AMY TAN

What should we do?", I asked, and I had a pained feeling I thought was the beginning of love.
...
AMY TAN

What is the past but what we choose to remember?
AMY TAN

After all, Bao Bomu says, what is the past but what we choose to remember?
AMY TAN

My favorite anything is always relative to the context of present time, place and mood. When I finis...
AMY TAN

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

Free time was the most precious time, when you should be doing what you loved, or at least slowing d...
AMY TAN

I learned about opening moves and why it's important to control the center early on; the shortest di...
AMY TAN

Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, then why don't you learn to play che...
AMY TAN

My parents told me I would become a doctor and then in my spare time I would become a concert pianis...
AMY TAN

I grew up with Bible stories, which are like fairy tales, because my father was a minister. We heard...
AMY TAN

He has always been politely indifferent. But what's the Chinese word that means indifferent because ...
AMY TAN

I'm usually woken by a vibration on my up-band. It's the gradual vibration for about ten sec...
AMY TAN

For books I want to keep reading, it's definitely the voice. It must be a voice I've never h...
AMY TAN

But you can't stay in the dark for so long. Something inside of you starts to fade and you become li...
AMY TAN

[Karen Lundegaard] was quite frail, debilitated by metastatic breast cancer, which she had long know...
AMY TAN

old books -- little tombstones of ideas and history
AMY TAN

I don't steer clear of genres. I simply haven't steered myself toward some of them.
AMY TAN

Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How ...
AMY TAN

I recognise why I have such a strong inability to forgive certain people who betray me. It's chi...
AMY TAN

And now at the airport, after shaking hands with everybody, waving good-bye, I think about all the d...
AMY TAN

He simply translated what was in LuLing's heart: her better intentions, her hopes.
AMY TAN

I take a few quick sips. "This is really good." And I mean it. I have never tasted tea like this. It...
AMY TAN

To keep false hopes is to prolong misery.
AMY TAN

Where did he go when he left us? I spied the new journal he had started using just last week and hel...
AMY TAN

Fate changes when you change your clothes.
AMY TAN

Teddy once told me that it's natural that we feel alone, and that's because our hearts are different...
AMY TAN

And for all those years, we never talked about the disaster at the recital or my terrible accusation...
AMY TAN

Can I tell my daughter that I loved her father? This was the man who rubbed my feet at night. He pra...
AMY TAN

wisdom is like a bottomless pond. You throw stones in and they sink into darkness and dissolve. Her...
AMY TAN

But to pretend that all was right with the world, I first had to know what was wrong.
AMY TAN

We listened patiently to Lester, words skittering out of his mouth like cartoon dogs on fresh-waxed ...
AMY TAN

I ask myself, How can I relax? How can I let go of everything that's happened? You need complete tru...
AMY TAN

Now that our marriage is over, I know what love is. It's a trick on the brain, the adrenal glands re...
AMY TAN

I think about our marriage. The weft of our seventeen years together was so easily torn apart. Our l...
AMY TAN

The next world is 'segregated'? You can go to the World of Yin only if you're Chinese?"
"No-no!...
AMY TAN

as to our hopes, our dreams, our secret desires, we couldn't talk about those. They were to vague, t...
AMY TAN

I think Kwan intended to show me the world is not a place but the vastness of the soul. And the soul...
AMY TAN

I now believe truth lies not in logic but in hope, both past and future. I believe hope can surprise...
AMY TAN

Every word, every gesture is now loaded with ambiguity, nothing can be taken at face value. We speak...
AMY TAN

And all that talk about the breakup being good for us- who am I trying to fool? I'm cut loose, untet...
AMY TAN

I think Kwan intended to show me the world is not a place but the vastness of the soul. And the soul...
AMY TAN

Life's always a big fucking compromise. You don't always get what you want, no matter how smart you ...
AMY TAN

I imagine a hundred Chinese Icaruses, molding wings out of earwax. You can't stop people from wishin...
AMY TAN

A few times I invited Ba to visit me from the World of Yin. But other yin friends tell me he is stuc...
AMY TAN

Being able to restrain my emotions isn’t a great victory—it’s the pitiful proof of lost love.
AMY TAN

. . .the world is not a place but the vastness of the soul. And the soul is nothing more than love, ...
AMY TAN

It isn't that i consider them brave, they are reckless, unpredictable, maddeningly unreliable. But l...
AMY TAN

When you already believe something, how can you suddenly stop? When you are a loyal friend, how can ...
AMY TAN

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

Love is tricky. It is never mundane or daily. You can never get used to it. You have to walk with it...
AMY TAN

too much happiness always overflowed into tears of sorrow.
AMY TAN

I learned to make things not matter, to put a seal on my hopes and place them on a high shelf, out o...
AMY TAN

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

But I was no longer sacared. I could see what was inside me.
-Lindo
AMY TAN

But now that I am old, moving every year closer to the end of my life, I also feel closer to the beg...
AMY TAN

The gnarled pine, I would have said, touch it. This is China. Horticulturalists around the world hav...
AMY TAN

The brain is the cornerstone of virtually every facet of our lives. I wish we knew more.
TAN LE

I am afraid of privilege, of ease, of entitlement.
TAN LE

! want to leverage the creativity of researchers across mathematics, statistics, data mining, comput...
TAN LE

You don't just wake up one day with dementia or Alzheimer's; these conditions are developmen...
TAN LE

I have stepped outside my comfort zone enough to know that, yes, the world does fall apart, but not ...
TAN LE

Sometimes the British press is maybe a little bit racist.
VINCENT TAN

Families represent the basic building blocks of our society, and primary care a foundational piece o...
TONY TAN

One day we are a hero, another day we are a zero. Without me, Cardiff would have gone bust. Because ...
VINCENT TAN

I hope we business people can invest more aggressively outside Metro Manila, whether in real estate,...
ANDREW TAN

Bitcoin will make a dent in society when more normal transactions occur that would have occurred wit...
GARRY TAN

Being right is important. Too many great teams march off saying, 'If we build it, they will come...
GARRY TAN

Bitcoin has the potential to destroy credit cards and banks as we know it. Maybe that is a good thin...
GARRY TAN

The audience for comics has shifted dramatically. And the boundaries between books and fine arts hav...
SHAUN TAN

First and foremost it's the size, the market cap of these Chinese companies. The magic number here i...
ALEX TAN

It can be grueling at times because you have to be meticulous about everything.
ALEX TAN

Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while, so that we can see Life with a clea...
ALEX TAN

It's good to have a country like New Zealand which is seen as safe, sophisticated, no real issues, u...
ALEX TAN

Smile when it hurts most.
ALEX TAN

I plan to work my utmost for Singaporeans, whatever be their political affiliation. The presidency i...
TONY TAN

Even the accomplished suffers setbacks sometimes. The more bitter the lessons, the greater the succe...
LUCIO TAN

Our understanding of the human brain can be dramatically accelerated if we collect and share researc...
TAN LE

Sometimes I write captions on the in-flight magazines and then replace them in the seat pocket.
SHAUN TAN

Singapore is a natural gateway for international firms looking to access Asia and for Asian business...
TONY TAN

In Asia, red is the colour of joy; red is the colour of festivities and of celebration. In Chinese c...
VINCENT TAN

The more I draw and write, the more I realise that accidents are a necessary part of any creative ac...
SHAUN TAN

It is okay to be an outsider, a recent arrival, new on the scene - and not just okay, but something ...
TAN LE

You're a hero one day, you're a villain another day. They say that's football. When a ma...
VINCENT TAN

Good and bad ideas both come from the same fountain of speculation and experiment.
SHAUN TAN

To ensure that Singaporeans can take advantage of opportunities, the government should continue to m...
TONY TAN

Idealisme adalah kemewahan terakhir yang hanya dimiliki oleh pemuda.
TAN MALAKA

I actually started out as a writer and then converted to illustration because I realised that there ...
SHAUN TAN

I would be able to provide a different perspective and act independently of the Government in the de...
TONY TAN

Di mana pun dia berada. Dan kuharap dia tahu bahwa selama aku masih bernafas, aku akan selalu mencin...
ILANA TAN

Much as I would like to give out as much as I can, I do recognize that my resources are not unlimite...
VINCENT TAN

Fire can benefit, but also destroy. Media will corrupt but will also inform. Food is needed, yet it ...
MARYALLE TAN

Drawing a good picture is like telling a really good lie - the key is in the incidental detail.
SHAUN TAN

I feel happy when I look at my grandson, who is 10 months old. That relaxes me.
ANDREW TAN

We can work together to produce better footballers for both FK Sarajevo and maybe Cardiff City and m...
VINCENT TAN

I wear sunglasses because of the glare of the spotlights. I wear gloves because it is very cold in t...
VINCENT TAN

Apart from boosting our long-term economic strength like other Asian economic powers, Philippine com...
ANDREW TAN

There are people in my life who give me comfort when the going gets tough, as it invariably does. I ...
ALEX TAN

Whatever initiatives we launch, we must always put the interests of Singaporeans and Singapore first...
TONY TAN

The objective of the plan is to give more flexibility to banks to provide services to their clients ...
ROGER TAN

Illustrating is more about communicating specific ideas to a reader. Painting is more like pure scie...
SHAUN TAN

The detail adds an element of unexpected something. All fiction is false; what makes it convincing i...
SHAUN TAN

By itself, just to draw crazy creatures has limited appeal - if I had to give up one thing, it would...
SHAUN TAN

Every clinical encounter is an opportunity to generate social capital. Even in situations where pati...
TONY TAN

I was surprised to find that the queen is actually a very friendly person. I felt very relaxed aroun...
ALVINA TAN

Massage is very important for relaxing.
ANDREW TAN

One day she felt weak and was admitted but the doctors found nothing wrong with her. Still, she was ...
ANDREW TAN

I picked this theme because children nowadays don't play such games anymore. I want to highlight to ...
ALVINA TAN

One way to mitigate our risk is to invest in companies with understandable business models.
ANDREW TAN

The start of the repatriation season is slow, as some 15 Afghan families comprising about 75 individ...
VIVIAN TAN

I've been in other close games, but not in one with a shot like Andrew's.
BENJI TAN

We got a little over excited at times. I can't ask for any more effort. They really played hard.
BENJI TAN

The textbook is kind of more bland.
STEPHANIE TAN

I love football now. I have a club in Sarajevo, and I love that. The fans are fantastic. The people ...
VINCENT TAN

We missed far too many chances and gave away soft goals in the match. We will now complete the class...
WALLACE TAN

Effort and consistency are the foundation to success.
MARYALLE TAN

ARM's partnership with Grace is an important addition to our continued commitment and support for ou...
JUN TAN

We spend our lives trying to find, this abstract being that we can call “mine”. We lose ourselve...
MARYALLE TAN

My friend Markus Zusak wrote a story from the point of view of death, 'The Book Thief.' I th...
SHAUN TAN

Over and over again, like clockwork, we see the human race present a remarkable talent all throughou...
MARYALLE TAN

Have you ever wondered why Cinderella's stepmother was bitter and greedy? Have you ever wondered why...
MARYALLE TAN

Through the outreach that I have done, through platforms, I hope to unify Singaporeans because at th...
TONY TAN

There's still a very positive yield story for Indonesia. There's been strong buying of bonds and tha...
CATHERINE TAN

We have developed our own approach towards rehabilitating people, involving psychological rehabilita...
TONY TAN

The stronger ties between primary care providers and the patients they serve will produce better out...
TONY TAN

I think now we are simply strangers with some memories.
TAN REDDING

Asia has a great future; we here in the Philippines will benefit from this Asian prosperity.
ANDREW TAN

Together, they read on his papers a survey of the most common words found in suicide notes and mass ...
SIHAN TAN

You discover how confounding the world is when you try to draw it. You look at a car, and you try to...
SHAUN TAN

It's only a very small percentage of creative thinking that ends up connecting with a wider audi...
SHAUN TAN

Why do I always listen to your insane plans? Why aren't we at home watching TV like everyone else? W...
SHAUN TAN

Our definition of VIP is not as big as in Macau. But for us, they are VIPs even if they don't sp...
ANDREW TAN

I always overwrite - really awful, long bits of script - and then I trim it down to the bare bones a...
SHAUN TAN

Everyone must dream. We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that's like saying you can never change your fate. Isn't that true?

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Amy Tan

Everyone must dream. We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that's like saying you can never change your fate. Isn't that true?

Amy Tan

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