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In [writing] fiction, every sentence is its own reward.

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
Every
Sentence
Reward
Sentences
Rewards
Fiction
Writing

More quotes by Amy Tan

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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.
Amy Tan
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My favorite anything is always relative to the context of present time, place and mood. When I finish a book and want to immediately find another by the same author and no other, that author is elevated to my favorite.
Amy Tan
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Dementia was like a truth serum.
Amy Tan
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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.
Amy Tan
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I did not lose myself all at once.
Amy Tan
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You remember only what you want to remember. You know only what your heart allows you to know.
Amy Tan
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You can't have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for the consequences? Saving fish from drowning. Same thing. Who’s saved? Who’s not?
Amy Tan
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A psychiatrist does not want you to wake up. He tells you to dream some more, to find the pond and pour more tears into it. And really, he's just another bird drinking from your misery.
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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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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All objects exist in a moment of time.
Amy Tan
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Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever.
Amy Tan
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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.
Amy Tan
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With each passing day, I didn't lose hope. I fought to have more.
Amy Tan
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So sad! This 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?
Amy Tan
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You can have pride in what you do each day, but not arrogance in what you were born with.
Amy Tan
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My mother had a look on her face that I'll never forget. It was one of complete despair and horror, for losing Bing, for being so foolish as to think she could use faith to change fate.
Amy Tan
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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.
Amy Tan
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I like to go somewhere where I learn something I didn't know before, like the Dry Tortugas between Florida and Cuba.
Amy Tan
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Placing on writers the responsibility to represent a culture is an onerous burden.
Amy Tan