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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.

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
Reality
Societies
Two
Worlds
Ever
Similar
Live
Labels
Sufficiently
Different
Considered
Representing
World
Merely
Distinct
Language
Languages
Social
Attached

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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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I did not lose myself all at once.
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It was a distorted form of inverse logic: If hopes never come true, then hope for what you don't want.
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To come so far, to lose so much and to find nothing. -Jing-mei
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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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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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Words are more ardent if a man must struggle to find them.
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Can you imagine how it is, to want to be neither inside nor outside, to want to be nowhere and disappear?
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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 mother had a look on her face that I'll never forget. It was one of complete despair and horror, for losing Bing, for being so foolish as to think she could use faith to change fate.
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It's a luxury being a writer, because all you ever think about is life.
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I didn't fear failure. I expected failure.
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You see what power is holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them.
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