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I have survivor skills. Some of that is superficial - what I present to people outwardly - but what makes people resilient is the ability to find humour and irony in situations that would otherwise overpower you.

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
People
Otherwise
Overpower
Skills
Outwardly
Present
Resilient
Situation
Survivor
Ability
Humour
Makes
Superficial
Find
Irony
Would
Situations

More quotes by Amy Tan

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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.
Amy Tan
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Whenever my mother talks to me, she begins the conversation as if we were already in the middle of an argument.
Amy Tan
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Words to me were magic. You could say a word and it could conjure up all kinds of images or feelings or a chilly sensation or whatever. It was amazing to me that words had this power.
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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
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I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength...strongest wind cannot be seen.
Amy Tan
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Sometimes you change to survive, and some things you don't give up, or you're too prideful, and then you think well, what's pride? Is it a good thing? Maybe it's a bad thing. That's what I look at in my life. It's always a question in my life I look at, and I never find the answer, because if I did, probably I wouldn't have books to write.
Amy Tan
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We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing, unheard and not hearing, unknown by others.
Amy Tan
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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.
Amy Tan
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I think books were my salvation, they saved me from being miserable.
Amy Tan
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I saw a girl complaining that the pain of not being seen was unbearable... Now I have perfect understanding. I have already experienced the worst. After this, there is no worse possible thing.
Amy Tan
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Hardships can harden even the best person.
Amy Tan
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And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.
Amy Tan
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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
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When I returned home that day, I saw my life as if I already knew the happy ending of a story. I looked around the house and thought, soon I will no longer have to see these walls and all the unhappiness they keep inside.
Amy Tan
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What is a secret wish? It is what you want but cannot ask.
Amy Tan
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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.
Amy Tan
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I thought this man had long ago drained everything from my heart. But now something strong and bitter flowed and made me feel another emptiness in a place I didn't know was there. I cursed this man aloud so he could hear. You had dog eyes. You jumped and followed whoever called you. Now you chase your own tail.
Amy Tan
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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
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Shanghainese people are good negotiators, they're very persistent, and you grow up in an atmosphere like that - very competitive. That becomes part of your personality, Shanghai personality becomes part of yours.
Amy Tan
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There are a lot of people who think that's what's needed to be successful is always being right, always being careful, always picking the right path.
Amy Tan