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I think books were my salvation, they saved me from being miserable.

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
Salvation
Saved
Books
Book
Think
Thinking
Miserable

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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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He asked if he could recite a poem he had written that morning: 'You speak,' he said, 'the language of shooting stars, more surprising than sunrise, more brilliant than the sun, as brief as sunset. I want to follow its trail to eternity.
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Your life is what you see in front of you. -An-mei
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People think it's a terrible tragedy when somebody has Alzheimer's. But in my mother's case, it's different. My mother has been unhappy all her life. For the first time in her life, she's happy.
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Hardships can harden even the best person.
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The muse appears at the point in my writing when I sense a subtle shift, a nudge to move over, and everything cracks open, the writing is freed, the lanuage is full, resources are plentiful, ideas pour forth, and to be frank, some of these ideas surprise me. It seems as thought the universe is my friend and is helping me write, its hand over mine.
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Dementia was like a truth serum.
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Isn't hate merely the result of wounded love?
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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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I have a writer's memory, which makes everything worse than maybe it actually was.
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I think we often write because we feel a loneliness, and people read for the same reason, and then they come away feeling a little less lonely.
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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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Placing on writers the responsibility to represent a culture is an onerous burden.
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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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Now you see,' said the turtle, drifting back into the pond, 'why it is useless to cry. Your tears do not wash away your sorrows. They feed someone else's joy. And that is why you must learn to swallow your own tears.
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How do I create something out of nothing? And how do I create my own life? I think it is by questioning, and saying to myself that there are no absolute truths.
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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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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.
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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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