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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
Mother
Anything
Wanted
Believe
Unlike

More quotes by Amy Tan

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I started a second novel seven times and I had to throw them away.
Amy Tan
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We all become different readers in how we respond to books, why we need them, what we take from them. We become different in the questions that arise as we read, in the answers that we find, in the degree of satisfaction or unease we feel with those answers...In the hands of a different reader, the same story can be a different story.
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.
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The forbidden things were a great influence on my life. I was forbidden from reading A Catcher in the Rye.
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You can get sucked into the idea that, 'Gosh, this is impressive. Maybe I should do this. It will look good.' Or 'I'll write like this because it will impress that critic.'
Amy Tan
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If I now recognize evil in other people, is it not because I have become evil too?
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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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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I learned to forgive myself, and that enabled me to forgive my mother as a person.
Amy Tan
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Her education only made her unhappy thinking about it - that no matter how much she changed her life, she could not change the world that surrounded her.
Amy Tan
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Chance is the first step you take, luck is what comes afterward.
Amy Tan
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I love my daughter. She and I have shared my body. There is a part of her mind that is a part of mine. But when she was born, she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and has been swimming away ever since.
Amy Tan
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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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Chaos is the penance for leisure.
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 am like a falling star who has finally found her place next to another in a lovely constellation, where we will sparkle in the heavens forever.
Amy Tan
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Ying-ying, you have tiger eyes. They gather fire in the day. At night they shine golden.
Amy Tan
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You must think for yourself, what you must do. If someone tells you, then you are not trying. -An-mei
Amy Tan
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Placing on writers the responsibility to represent a culture is an onerous burden.
Amy Tan
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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
Amy Tan