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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.

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
Unlike
Mother
Anything
Wanted
Believe

More quotes by Amy Tan

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My parents had very high expectations. They expected me to get straight A's from the time I was in kindergarten.
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Placing on writers the responsibility to represent a culture is an onerous burden.
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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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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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I loved fairy tales when I was a kid. Grimm. The grimmer the better. I loved gruesome gothic tales and, in that respect, I liked Bible stories, because to me they were very gothic.
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I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water.
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...we were like two people standing apart on separate mountain peaks, recklessly leaning forward to throw stones at one another, unaware of the dangerous chasm that separated us.
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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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Among writers, if you don't have a therapist, it's like saying you don't keep a journal or use the thesaurus. It's a natural accompaniment.
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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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All objects exist in a moment of time.
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To save myself, I destroyed another, and in doing so, I destroyed myself.
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People there only dream that it is China, because if you are Chinese you can never let go of China in your mind.
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To come so far, to lose so much and to find nothing. -Jing-mei
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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.
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We all had our miseries. But to despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable. -Suyuan
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Chance is the first step you take, luck is what comes afterward.
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I would still like to have that luxury, to be able to just sit and draw for hours and hours and hours. In a way, that's what I do as a writer.
Amy Tan
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When you already believe something, how can you suddenly stop? When you are a loyal friend, how can you no longer be one?
Amy Tan
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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.
Amy Tan