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I have always known a thing before it happens.

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
Known
Happens
Thing
Always

More quotes by 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.
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Secrets are kept from children, a lid on top of the soup kettle, so they do not boil over with too much truth.
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God, life changes faster than you think.
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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.
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I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these things do not mix?
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We all hate moral ambiguity in some sense, and yet it is also absolutely necessary. In writing a story, it is the place where I begin.
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No one in my family was a reader of literary fiction. So, I didn't have encouragement, but I didn't have discouragement, because I don't think anybody knew what that meant.
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Hardships can harden even the best person.
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When you lose your face..., it is like dropping your necklace down a well. The only way you can get it back is to fall in after it.
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I have loved works of fiction precisely for their illusions, for the author's sleight-of-hand in showing me the magic, what appeared in the right hand but not in the left.
Amy Tan
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Fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention.
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I've always been a magnet for guilt.
Amy Tan
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I think I've always been somebody, since the deaths of my father and brother, who was afraid to hope. So, I was more prepared for failure and for rejection than for success.
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.
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You should think about your character. Know where you are changing, how you will be changed, what cannot be changed back again.
Amy Tan
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I had on a beautiful red dress, but what I saw was even more valuable. I was strong. I was pure. I had genuine thoughts inside that no one could see, that no one could ever take away from me. I was like the wind. -Lindo
Amy Tan
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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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The life we receive is not always what we choose.
Amy Tan
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Chaos is the penance for leisure.
Amy Tan
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I didn't fear failure. I expected failure.
Amy Tan