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You write a book and you hope somebody will go out and pay $24.95 for what you've just said. I think books were my salvation. Books 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
Books
Hope
Write
Book
Miserable
Writing
Salvation
Think
Saved
Thinking
Pay
Somebody

More quotes by 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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You can never be an artist if your work comes without effort. That is the problem with modernink from a bottle. You do not have to think. You simply write what is swimming on the top of your brain. And the top is nothing but pond scum, dead leaves, and mosquito spawn.
Amy Tan
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My mother didn't teach me lessons about being Chinese as strongly as she did the notion of who I was as a female.
Amy Tan
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That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secrets.
Amy Tan
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A Mother is the one who fills your heart in the first place.
Amy Tan
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I don't steer clear of genres. I simply haven't steered myself toward some of them.
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 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.
Amy Tan
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People there only dream that it is China, because if you are Chinese you can never let go of China in your mind.
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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Your only shame is to have shame.
Amy Tan
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How can you blame a person for his fears and weaknesses unless you have felt the same and done differently?
Amy Tan
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God, life changes faster than you think.
Amy Tan
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I was punched breathless by the strongest emotions I have ever felt and they are now stored in my intuition as a writer.
Amy Tan
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I have survivor skills. Some of that is superficial - what I present to people outwardly - but what makes people resilient is the ability to find humour and irony in situations that would otherwise overpower you.
Amy Tan
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Words are more ardent if a man must struggle to find them.
Amy Tan
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Because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones. You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh. -An-mei
Amy Tan
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I AM A PERSON WHO THINKS ABOUT THE NATURE OF THE SPIRIT WHEN I WRITE. I THINK ABOUT WHAT CAN'T BE KNOWN AND ONLY IMAGINED. I OFTEN SENSE A SPIRIT OR FORCE OR MEANING BEYOND MYSELF. I LEAVE IT OPEN AS TO WHAT THE SPIRIT IS, BUT I CONTINUE TO MAKE GUESSES.
Amy Tan
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I'd like to be more forgiving. There are times when I've had a hard time forgiving people who have betrayed me.
Amy Tan
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Why do some memories live only on your tongue or in your nose? Why do others always stay in your heart?
Amy Tan