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My mother would say it is literally ghost writers who come to me.

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
Would
Literally
Ghost
Writers
Teaching
Mother
Come

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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 saw a girl complaining that the pain of not being seen was unbearable... Now I have perfect understanding. I have already experienced the worst. After this, there is no worse possible thing.
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Don't think too much. That makes you believe you have more choices than you do. Then you mind becomes confused.
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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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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.
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Placing on writers the responsibility to represent a culture is an onerous burden.
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You remember only what you want to remember. You know only what your heart allows you to know.
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Seeing her this last time, I threw myself on her body. And she opened her eyes slowly. I was not scared. I knew she could see me and what she had finally done. So i shut her eyes with my fingers and told her with my heart: I cah see the truth, too. I am strong, too.
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And then she had to fill out so many forms she forgot why she had come and what she had left behind.
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Language is the tool of my trade -and I use them all - all the Englishes I grew up with
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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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On the third day after someone dies, the soul comes back to settle scores. In my mother's case, this would be the first day of the lunar new year. And because it is the new year, all debts must be paid, or disaster and misfortune will follow.
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We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.
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In [writing] fiction, every sentence is its own reward.
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While it is good to speak well, it is better to speak the truth.
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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.
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too much happiness always overflowed into tears of sorrow.
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