Quote

My parents told me I would become a doctor and then in my spare time I would become a concert pianist. So, both my day job and my spare time were sort of taken care of.

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
Time
Told
Pianist
Parent
Spare
Sort
Concert
Taken
Spares
Jobs
Concerts
Become
Doctor
Care
Doctors
Would
Parents

More quotes by Amy Tan

Image
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.
Amy Tan
Image
All objects exist in a moment of time.
Amy Tan
Image
Whenever I'm with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines.
Amy Tan
Image
But I don't have anything left inside of me to figure out where I fit in or what I want. If I want anything, it's to know what's possible to want.
Amy Tan
Image
We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing, unheard and not hearing, unknown by others.
Amy Tan
Image
We all hate moral ambiguity in some sense, and yet it is also absolutely necessary. In writing a story, it is the place where I begin.
Amy Tan
Image
People think it's a terrible tragedy when somebody has Alzheimer's. But in my mother's case, it's different. My mother has been unhappy all her life. For the first time in her life, she's happy.
Amy Tan
Image
If I look upon my whole life, I cannot think of another time when I felt more comfortable: when I had no worries, fears, or desires, when my life seemed as soft and lovely as lying inside a cocoon of rose silk.
Amy Tan
Image
But I will win and give her my spirit, because this is the way a mother loves her daughter. -Ying Ying
Amy Tan
Image
I don't steer clear of genres. I simply haven't steered myself toward some of them.
Amy Tan
Image
That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secrets.
Amy Tan
Image
It is because I had so much joy that I came to have so much hate.
Amy Tan
Image
You should think about your character. Know where you are changing, how you will be changed, what cannot be changed back again.
Amy Tan
Image
We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.
Amy Tan
Image
I've always been a magnet for guilt.
Amy Tan
Image
The life we receive is not always what we choose.
Amy Tan
Image
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
Image
Language is the tool of my trade -and I use them all - all the Englishes I grew up with
Amy Tan
Image
Secrets are kept from children, a lid on top of the soup kettle, so they do not boil over with too much truth.
Amy Tan
Image
Libraries are the pride of the city.
Amy Tan