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I saw what I had been fighting for: it was for me, a scared child.

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
Scared
Saws
Child
Fighting
Children

More quotes by Amy Tan

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What is a secret wish? It is what you want but cannot ask.
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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.
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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 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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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 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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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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I used to think that my mother got into arguments with people because they didn't understand her English, because she was Chinese.
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Your only shame is to have shame.
Amy Tan
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Only two kinds of daughters, she shouted in Chinese. Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!
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And below the heimongmong, all along the ground, were weeds already spilling out over the edges, running wild in every direction.
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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?
Amy Tan
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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.
Amy Tan
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I saw my mother in a different light. We all need to do that. You have to be displaced from what's comfortable and routine, and then you get to see things with fresh eyes, with new eyes.
Amy Tan
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But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better. -Jing-mei
Amy Tan
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If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.
Amy Tan
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And when I say that is certainly true, that our marriage is over. I know what else she will say: Then you must save it. And even though I know it's hopeless- there's absolutely nothing left to save-I'm afraid if I tell her that, she'll still persuade me to try.
Amy Tan
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You have to be your own person. You can't let people's opinions determine how you think about yourself. There's a difference between identity and self-identity.
Amy Tan
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God, life changes faster than you think.
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After all, Bao Bomu says, what is the past but what we choose to remember?
Amy Tan