Quote

It's a luxury being a writer, because all you ever think about is life.

Amy Tan

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Amy Tan
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: February 19
Essayist
Film Writer
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Oakland
California
Amy Ruth Tan
Luxury
Writer
Ever
Writing
Think
Thinking
Life

More quotes by Amy Tan

Image
I'd like to be more forgiving. There are times when I've had a hard time forgiving people who have betrayed me.
Amy Tan
Image
With each passing day, I didn't lose hope. I fought to have more.
Amy Tan
Image
I like to go somewhere where I learn something I didn't know before, like the Dry Tortugas between Florida and Cuba.
Amy Tan
Image
We are the kind of people who obsess over one word... but we have only one shot to get it right in concert. It was hard the first time I practiced with them. I was so nervous that my vocal chords were paralyzed for about a half-hour.
Amy Tan
Image
I would find myself laughing and wondering where these ideas came from. You can call it imagination, I suppose. But I was grateful for wherever they came from.
Amy Tan
Image
We all had our miseries. But to despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable. -Suyuan
Amy Tan
Image
Ying-ying, you have tiger eyes. They gather fire in the day. At night they shine golden.
Amy Tan
Image
How do I create something out of nothing? And how do I create my own life? I think it is by questioning, and saying to myself that there are no absolute truths.
Amy Tan
Image
I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these things do not mix?
Amy Tan
Image
Memory feeds imagination.
Amy Tan
Image
No one in my family was a reader of literary fiction. So, I didn't have encouragement, but I didn't have discouragement, because I don't think anybody knew what that meant.
Amy Tan
Image
I think Kwan intended to show me the world is not a place but the vastness of the sou. And the soul is nothing more than love, limitless, endless, all that moves us toward knowing what is true....If people we love die, then they are lost only to our ordinary senses. If we remember, we can find them anytime with our hundred secret senses.
Amy Tan
Image
Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever.
Amy Tan
Image
Yesterday my daughter said to me, 'My marriage is falling apart.' And now all she can do is watch it falling.
Amy Tan
Image
I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents' promiise. This means nothing to you, because to you promises mean nothing... But later, she will forget her promise. She will forget she had a grandmother.
Amy Tan
Image
Why do some memories live only on your tongue or in your nose? Why do others always stay in your heart?
Amy Tan
Image
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
Image
Fate changes when you change your clothes.
Amy Tan
Image
Then she told me why a tiger is gold and black. It has two ways. The gold side leaps with its fierce heart. The black side stands still with cunning, hiding its gold between the trees, seeing and not being seen, waiting patiently for things to come. I did not learn to use my black side until after the bad man left me.
Amy Tan
Image
I AM A PERSON WHO THINKS ABOUT THE NATURE OF THE SPIRIT WHEN I WRITE. I THINK ABOUT WHAT CAN'T BE KNOWN AND ONLY IMAGINED. I OFTEN SENSE A SPIRIT OR FORCE OR MEANING BEYOND MYSELF. I LEAVE IT OPEN AS TO WHAT THE SPIRIT IS, BUT I CONTINUE TO MAKE GUESSES.
Amy Tan