“What use for? asks my mother, jiggling the table with her hand. You put something else on top, everything fall down.” — Amy Tan Mother Copy Share Image
I am fascinated by language in daily life: the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or… — Amy Tan Complexes Copy Share Image
“It's a luxury being a writer, because all you ever think about is life. Read more at” — Amy Tan Books Copy Share Image
“Forget about love. You will receive that many times, but none of it is lasting.” — Amy Tan Copy Share Image
“Being a dominatrix gave me the ultimate power: to sing without self-consciousness.” — Amy Tan Dominatrix Copy Share Image
When you lose your face..., it is like dropping your necklace down a well. The only way you can get it back… — Amy Tan Copy Share Image
We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate. — Amy Tan Dream Copy Share Image
You see what power is holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them. — Amy Tan Copy Share Image
You can never be an artist if your work comes without effort. That is the problem with modernink from a bottle. You… — Amy Tan Art Copy Share Image
“My mother knows how to hit a nerve. And the pain I feel is worse than any other kind of misery. Because… — Amy Tan Mother Copy Share Image
I saw my mother in a different light. We all need to do that. You have to be displaced from what's comfortable… — Amy Tan Copy Share Image
People think it's a terrible tragedy when somebody has Alzheimer's. But in my mother's case, it's different. My mother has been unhappy… — Amy Tan Alzheimer Copy Share Image
There's no hope. There's no reason to keep trying. Because you must. This is not hope. Not reason. This is your fate.… — Amy Tan Fate Copy Share Image
So much of history is mystery. We don't know what is lost forever, what will surface again. All objects exist in a… — Amy Tan Art of life Copy Share Image
“Anyone can have original style,” he countered. “And yet no one truly does. We’re influenced by those who came before us, beginning… — Amy Tan Artist Copy Share Image
A psychiatrist does not want you to wake up. He tells you to dream some more, to find the pond and pour… — Amy Tan Bird Copy Share Image
“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 Bad luck Copy Share Image
“American circumstances and Chiese character. How could I know these two things do not mix? I taught her how American circumstances work.… — Amy Tan Bad luck Copy Share Image
What is true about a person? Would I change in the same way the river changes color but still be the same… — Amy Tan Color Copy Share Image
“I know how it is to live your life like a dream. To listen and watch, to wake up and try to… — Amy Tan Dreams Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
Isn't that how it is when you must decide with your heart? You are not just choosing one thing over another. You… — Amy Tan Copy Share Image
“What do you think was the first sound to become a word, a meaning?... I imagined two people without words, unable to… — Amy Tan Language Copy Share Image
“Can I tell my daughter that I loved her father? This was the man who rubbed my feet at night. He praised… — Amy Tan Children Copy Share Image
I thought I was clever enough to write as well as these people and I didn't realize that there is something called… — Amy Tan Clever Copy Share Image
My mother didn't teach me lessons about being Chinese as strongly as she did the notion of who I was as a… — Amy Tan Chinese Copy Share Image
We are living in a world where everything is false. The society is like bright paint applied on top of rotten wood. — Amy Tan Community Copy Share Image
“All of us are like stairs, one step after another, going up and down, but all going the same way.” — Amy Tan Copy Share Image
“Even though I did not understand her entire story, I understood her grief.” — Amy Tan Grief Copy Share Image
I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these things do not… — Amy Tan Character Copy Share Image
And after I played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song. — Amy Tan Copy Share Image
“We listened patiently to Lester, words skittering out of his mouth like cartoon dogs on fresh-waxed linoleum, frantically going nowhere.” — Amy Tan Copy Share Image
For woman is yin, the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds. — Amy Tan Darkness Copy Share Image
Placing on writers the responsibility to represent a culture is an onerous burden. — Amy Tan Burden Copy Share Image
“When a husband stops paying attention to the garden, he's thinking of pulling up roots.” — Amy Tan Divorce Copy Share Image
The forbidden things were a great influence on my life. I was forbidden from reading A Catcher in the Rye. — Amy Tan Catcher in the rye Copy Share Image
My parents had very high expectations. They expected me to get straight A's from the time I was in kindergarten. — Amy Tan Expectations Copy Share Image
“They say this is what happens if you lack metal. You begin to think as an independent person.” — Amy Tan Copy Share Image
I have a writer's memory which makes everything worse than maybe it actually was. — Amy Tan Memory Copy Share Image
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… — Amy Tan Depression Copy Share Image
