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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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Amy Tan
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: February 19
Essayist
Film Writer
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Oakland
California
Amy Ruth Tan
Wanted
Craft
Firsts
Aesthetic
First
Crafts
Writing
Private
Thing
Write
Something
Art
Good
Stories
Become
Purely

More quotes by Amy Tan

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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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I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life.
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Now you see,' said the turtle, drifting back into the pond, 'why it is useless to cry. Your tears do not wash away your sorrows. They feed someone else's joy. And that is why you must learn to swallow your own tears.
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In [writing] fiction, every sentence is its own reward.
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In America nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you.
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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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There's no hope. There's no reason to keep trying. Because you must. This is not hope. Not reason. This is your fate. This is your life, what you must do.
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Dementia was like a truth serum.
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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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I thought I was clever enough to write as well as these people and I didn't realize that there is something called originality and your own voice.
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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.
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How can you blame a person for his fears and weaknesses unless you have felt the same and done differently?
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I don't steer clear of genres. I simply haven't steered myself toward some of them.
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Whenever I'm with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines.
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And I remember wondering why it was that eating something good could make me feel so terrible, while vomiting something terrible could make me feel so good.
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With each passing day, I didn't lose hope. I fought to have more.
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Only two kinds of daughters, she shouted in Chinese. Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!
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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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But I was no longer sacared. I could see what was inside me. -Lindo
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Now they seemed to be in a contest over who could irritate her more, and she sometimes had to remind herself that teenagers had souls
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