Parenting Quotes by Amy Tan

A mother is always the beggining. She is how things begin.

— Amy Tan

My mother would say it is literally ghost writers who come to me.

— Amy Tan

I learned to forgive myself, and that enabled me to forgive my mother as a person.

— Amy Tan

“May the dog-mother rut with a dead devil!”

— Amy Tan

A Mother is the one who fills your heart in the first place.

— Amy Tan

“A mother is always the beginning. She is how things begin.”

— Amy Tan

I used to think that my mother got into arguments with people because they didn't understand her English, because she was Chinese.

— Amy Tan

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

— Amy Tan

“Together we look like our mother. Her same eyes, her same mouth, open in surprise to see, at last, her long-cherished wish.”

— Amy Tan

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

— Amy Tan

For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could only be me.

— Amy Tan

I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength..."strongest wind cannot be seen."

— Amy Tan

“I am ashamed she is ashamed. Because she is my daughter and I am proud of her, and I am her mother…

— Amy Tan

My parents told me I would become a doctor and then in my spare time I would become a concert pianist. So,…

— Amy Tan

I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength. It was a strategy for winning arguments, respect for…

— Amy Tan

“And even though I taught my daughter the opposite, still she came out the same way! Maybe it is because she was…

— Amy Tan

Because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones. You must peel off your skin, and that…

— Amy Tan

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

— Amy Tan

“In two years' time, my scar became pale and shinny and I had no memory of my mother. That is the way…

— Amy Tan

“In truth, this was a bad thing that Yan Chang had done, telling me my mother’s story. Secrets are kept from children,…

— Amy Tan

I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents' promiise. This means nothing to you, because to you promises mean nothing... But…

— Amy Tan

“My mother knows how to hit a nerve. And the pain I feel is worse than any other kind of misery. Because…

— Amy Tan

Each person is made of five different elements, she told me. Too much fire and you had a bad temper. That was…

— Amy Tan

“And my eyes, my mother gave me my eyes, no eyelids, as if they were carved on a jack-o'-lantern with two swift…

— Amy Tan

“As proof of her faith, my mother used to carry a small leatherette Bible when she went to the First Chinese Baptist…

— Amy Tan

Mothers have the huge influence, and I feel like they're always teaching us from the day we're born what to be afraid…

— Amy Tan

“And then I see my mother sitting by the open window, her dark silhouette against the night sky. She turns around in…

— Amy Tan

She [my mother] said that if I listened to her, later I would know what she knew: where true words came from,…

— Amy Tan

My mother imparted her daily truths so she could help my older brothers and me rise above our circumstances. We lived in…

— Amy Tan

A girl is like a young tree, she said. You must stand tall and listen to your mother standing next to you.…

— Amy Tan

“...A mother is the one who fills your heart in the first place. She teaches you the nature of happiness: what is…

— Amy Tan

“...I owed her a debt of gratitude. More than gratitude, much more. I could finally see what had always been there. She…

— Amy Tan

“Thanks to my mother, I was raised to have a morbid imagination. When I was a child, she often talked about death…

— Amy Tan

“I do not consider myself a religious person, because I don't adhere to a particular religion or faith or prescribed beliefs, as…

— Amy Tan

“My mother believed in God's will for many years. It was af if she had turned on a celestial faucet and goodness…

— Amy Tan

“What do you think was the first sound to become a word, a meaning?... I imagined two people without words, unable to…

— Amy Tan

“Can I tell my daughter that I loved her father? This was the man who rubbed my feet at night. He praised…

— Amy Tan

“As proof of her faith, my mother used to carry a samll leatherette Bible when she went to the First Chinese Baptist…

— Amy Tan

My mother said I was a clingy kid until I was about four. I also remember that from the age of eight…

— Amy Tan

“I made a promise to myself: I would always remember my parents' wishes, but I would never forget myself.”

— Amy Tan