Amy Tan

“Probably jet lag.”

— Amy Tan

Hope is the adrenalin of the soul.

— Amy Tan

I won't be what I'm not. -Jing-mei

— Amy Tan

Libraries are the pride of the city.

— Amy Tan

With hope, a mind is always free.

— Amy Tan

Chaos is the penance for leisure.

— Amy Tan

Dementia was like a truth serum.

— Amy Tan

“bad, how likely is it to come”

— Amy Tan

“any legend is not worth making up if it does not include a murder or two.”

— Amy Tan

“I was no longer scared. I could see what was inside me.”

— Amy Tan

Isn't hate merely the result of wounded love?

— Amy Tan

“After a while, I hurt so much I didn't feel any difference.”

— Amy Tan

I hated the tests the raised hopes and failed expectations." - Two Kinds

— Amy Tan

I have always known a thing before it happens.

— Amy Tan

I started a second novel seven times and I had to throw them away.

— Amy Tan

too much happiness always overflowed into tears of sorrow.

— Amy Tan

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

— Amy Tan

“When a husband stops paying attention to the garden, he's thinking of pulling up roots.”

— Amy Tan

“We listened patiently to Lester, words skittering out of his mouth like cartoon dogs on fresh-waxed linoleum, frantically going nowhere.”

— Amy Tan

For woman is yin, the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds.

— Amy Tan

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

— Amy Tan

“They say this is what happens if you lack metal. You begin to think as an independent person.”

— Amy Tan

The forbidden things were a great influence on my life. I was forbidden from reading A Catcher in the Rye.

— Amy Tan

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

— Amy Tan

Yet part of me also thinks the whole idea makes perfect sense. The three of us, leaving our differences behind, stepping on…

— 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

“If you asked me how I felt when they told me I would marry Wen Fu, I can say only this: It…

— Amy Tan

“Reviewers, critics, guest editors... Such people may have an eye for literary conventions and contrivances, allusions and innovations on the art. But…

— Amy Tan

When I returned home that day, I saw my life as if I already knew the happy ending of a story. I…

— Amy Tan

From what I have observed, when the anesthesia of love wears off, there is always the pain of consequences. You don't have…

— Amy Tan

I felt like a rich vagabond who had passed through the world paving my way with gold fairy dust, then realizing too…

— Amy Tan

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

— Amy Tan

“I taught her how American circumstances work. If you are born poor here, it’s no lasting shame. You are first in line…

— Amy Tan

So this is what I will do. I will gather together my past and look. I will see a thing that has…

— Amy Tan

“Teddy once told me that it’s natural that we feel alone, and that’s because our hearts are different from others and we…

— Amy Tan

That is the saddest part when you lose someone you love - that person keeps changing. And later you wonder, Is this…

— Amy Tan

But now that I am old, moving every year closer to the end of my life, I also feel closer to the…

— Amy Tan

“I know how it is to live your life like a dream. To listen and watch, to wake up and try to…

— Amy Tan

What is true about a person? Would I change in the same way the river changes color but still be the same…

— Amy Tan

“American circumstances and Chiese character. How could I know these two things do not mix? I taught her how American circumstances work.…

— Amy Tan