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I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life.

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
Thought
Jazz
Also
Lessons
Firsts
Tried
First
Completely
Take
Fiction
Writing
Playing
Things
Making
Alien
Life
Write
Aliens

More quotes by 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
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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.
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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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too much happiness always overflowed into tears of sorrow.
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With each passing day, I didn't lose hope. I fought to have more.
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I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength...strongest wind cannot be seen.
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Mothers have the huge influence, and I feel like they're always teaching us from the day we're born what to be afraid of, what to be cautious of, what we should like and what we should look like. Then we spend half of our life trying to be not like them, and then we reach another part of our lives where we see these things we can't get rid of.
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I let one thing result from another. Of course, all of it could have been just loosely connected coincidences. And whether that's true or not, I know the intention was there. Becasue when I want something to happen-or not happen- I begin to look at all events and all things as relevant, an opportunity to take or avoid.
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Wise guy, he not go against wind. In Chinese we say, Come from South, blow with wind -- poom! -- North will follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen.
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While it is good to speak well, it is better to speak the truth.
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That is the saddest part when you lose someone you love - that person keeps changing. And later you wonder, Is this the same person I lost? Maybe you lost more maybe less, then thousand different things that come from your memory or imagination - and you do not know which is which, which was true, which is false.
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But I was no longer sacared. I could see what was inside me. -Lindo
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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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You remember only what you want to remember. You know only what your heart allows you to know.
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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.
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I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength. It was a strategy for winning arguments, respect for others, and eventually, thought neither of us knew it at the time, chess games... Come from the South, blow from the wind - poom! - North will follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen.
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And I remember wondering why it was that eating something good could make me feel so terrible, while vomiting something terrible could make me feel so good.
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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.
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Sure I loved him - too much. And he loved me, only not enough. I just want someone who thinks I'm number one in his life. I'm not willing to accept emotional scraps anymore.
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That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secrets.
Amy Tan