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

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
Maybe
Actually
Makes
Everything
Memory
Worse
Writer
Memories

More quotes by Amy Tan

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For woman is yin, the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds.
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You remember only what you want to remember. You know only what your heart allows you to know.
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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.'
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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 all her life. For the first time in her life, she's happy.
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Seeing her this last time, I threw myself on her body. And she opened her eyes slowly. I was not scared. I knew she could see me and what she had finally done. So i shut her eyes with my fingers and told her with my heart: I cah see the truth, too. I am strong, too.
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Too many good things all seem the same after a while.
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It's a luxury being a writer, because all you ever think about is life.
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And when I say that is certainly true, that our marriage is over. I know what else she will say: Then you must save it. And even though I know it's hopeless- there's absolutely nothing left to save-I'm afraid if I tell her that, she'll still persuade me to try.
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Yesterday my daughter said to me, 'My marriage is falling apart.' And now all she can do is watch it falling.
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And now I have to stop. Because every time I remember this, I have to cry a little by myself. I don't know why something that made me so happy then feels so sad now. Maybe that is the way it is with the best memories.
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You write a book and you hope somebody will go out and pay $24.95 for what you've just said. I think books were my salvation. Books saved me from being miserable.
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And after I played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.
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Don't think too much. That makes you believe you have more choices than you do. Then you mind becomes confused.
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You have to be your own person. You can't let people's opinions determine how you think about yourself. There's a difference between identity and self-identity.
Amy Tan
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I can never remember things I didn't understand in the first place.
Amy Tan
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I learned to forgive myself, and that enabled me to forgive my mother as a person.
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Fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention.
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My sister Kwan believes she has yin eyes. She sees those who have died and now dwell in the world of Yin, ghosts who leave the mists just to visit her kitchen on Balboa Street in San Francisco.
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I began to look at all events and all things as relevant, an opportunity to take or avoid.
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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