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

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
Writers
Responsibility
Culture
Onerous
Placing
Represent
Burden

More quotes by Amy Tan

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I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength. It was a strategy for winning arguments, respect for others, and eventually, thought neither of us knew it at the time, chess games... Come from the South, blow from the wind - poom! - North will follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen.
Amy Tan
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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.
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When you already believe something, how can you suddenly stop? When you are a loyal friend, how can you no longer be one?
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That is the nature of endings, it seems. They never end. When all the missing pieces of your life are found, put together with glue of memory and reason, there are more pieces to be found.
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Too many good things all seem the same after a while.
Amy Tan
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I started a second novel seven times and I had to throw them away.
Amy Tan
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A mother is always the beggining. She is how things begin.
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Those who don't heed the warnings don't live to admit they were stupid not to do so.
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Only you pick that crab. Nobody else take it. I already know this. Everyone else want best quality. You thinking different.
Amy Tan
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I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water.
Amy Tan
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I love my daughter. She and I have shared my body. There is a part of her mind that is a part of mine. But when she was born, she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and has been swimming away ever since.
Amy Tan
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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
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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.
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I don't steer clear of genres. I simply haven't steered myself toward some of them.
Amy Tan
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Your only shame is to have shame.
Amy Tan
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For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could only be me.
Amy Tan
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Why do you think you are missing something you never had?
Amy Tan
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Fate changes when you change your clothes.
Amy Tan
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You can have pride in what you do each day, but not arrogance in what you were born with.
Amy Tan
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I always thought it mattered, to know what is the worst possible thing that can happen to you, to know how you can avoid it, to not be drawn by the magic of the unspeakable.
Amy Tan