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

Amy Tan

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Amy Tan
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: February 19
Essayist
Film Writer
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Oakland
California
Amy Ruth Tan
Intelligent
Choice
Expression
Choices
Freedom
Enough
Mind
Make

More quotes by Amy Tan

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Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, then why don't you learn to play chess. - Ch. 5
Amy Tan
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Memory feeds imagination.
Amy Tan
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Those who don't heed the warnings don't live to admit they were stupid not to do so.
Amy Tan
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Sure I loved him - too much. And he loved me, only not enough. I just want someone who thinks I'm number one in his life. I'm not willing to accept emotional scraps anymore.
Amy Tan
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That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secrets.
Amy Tan
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On the third day after someone dies, the soul comes back to settle scores. In my mother's case, this would be the first day of the lunar new year. And because it is the new year, all debts must be paid, or disaster and misfortune will follow.
Amy Tan
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They know where happiness lies, not in a cave or a country, but in love and the freedom to give and take what has been there all along.
Amy Tan
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All these years I kept my true nature hidden, running along like a small shadow so nobody could catch me. -Ying Ying
Amy Tan
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I like to go somewhere where I learn something I didn't know before, like the Dry Tortugas between Florida and Cuba.
Amy Tan
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Wise guy, he not go against wind. In Chinese we say, Come from South, blow with wind -- poom! -- North will follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen.
Amy Tan
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You can get sucked into the idea that, 'Gosh, this is impressive. Maybe I should do this. It will look good.' Or 'I'll write like this because it will impress that critic.'
Amy Tan
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Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain.
Amy Tan
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I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you're in control.
Amy Tan
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I wanted to write stories for myself. At first it was purely an aesthetic thing about craft. I just wanted to become good at the art of something. And writing was very private.
Amy Tan
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I have survivor skills. Some of that is superficial - what I present to people outwardly - but what makes people resilient is the ability to find humour and irony in situations that would otherwise overpower you.
Amy Tan
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People there only dream that it is China, because if you are Chinese you can never let go of China in your mind.
Amy Tan
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I loved fairy tales when I was a kid. Grimm. The grimmer the better. I loved gruesome gothic tales and, in that respect, I liked Bible stories, because to me they were very gothic.
Amy Tan
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You see what power is holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them.
Amy Tan
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I am fascinated by language in daily life: the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth.
Amy Tan
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I feel I've always been writing about self-identity. How do we become who we are? So I'm just writing from experience what's concerned me.
Amy Tan