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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
Become
Purely
Wanted
Craft
Firsts
Aesthetic
First
Crafts
Writing
Private
Thing
Write
Something
Art
Good
Stories

More quotes by Amy Tan

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A Mother is the one who fills your heart in the first place.
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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.
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If I now recognize evil in other people, is it not because I have become evil too?
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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 my daughter looks at me, she sees a small old lady. That is because she sees only with her outside eyes. She has no chuming, no inside knowing of things. If she had chuming she would see a tiger lady. And she would have careful fear.
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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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He asked if he could recite a poem he had written that morning: 'You speak,' he said, 'the language of shooting stars, more surprising than sunrise, more brilliant than the sun, as brief as sunset. I want to follow its trail to eternity.
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I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength...strongest wind cannot be seen.
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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.
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I felt foolish and tired, as if I had been running to escape someone chasing me, only to look behind to discover there was no one there.
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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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Hardships can harden even the best person.
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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
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That is the way it is with a wound. The wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much. And once it is closed, you no longer see what is underneath, what started the pain.
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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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No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.
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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.
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And below the heimongmong, all along the ground, were weeds already spilling out over the edges, running wild in every direction.
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You can't have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for the consequences? Saving fish from drowning. Same thing. Who’s saved? Who’s not?
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So much of history is mystery. We don't know what is lost forever, what will surface again. All objects exist in a moment of time. And that fragment of time is preserved or lost or found in mysterious ways. Mystery is a wonderful part of life.
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