Quote

I can never remember things I didn't understand in the first place.

Amy Tan

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Amy Tan
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: February 19
Essayist
Film Writer
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Oakland
California
Amy Ruth Tan
First
Things
Never
Understanding
Understand
Didn
Place
Remember
Firsts

More quotes by Amy Tan

Image
I would find myself laughing and wondering where these ideas came from. You can call it imagination, I suppose. But I was grateful for wherever they came from.
Amy Tan
Image
Words are more ardent if a man must struggle to find them.
Amy Tan
Image
You should think about your character. Know where you are changing, how you will be changed, what cannot be changed back again.
Amy Tan
Image
Libraries are the pride of the city.
Amy Tan
Image
The forbidden things were a great influence on my life. I was forbidden from reading A Catcher in the Rye.
Amy Tan
Image
I started a second novel seven times and I had to throw them away.
Amy Tan
Image
What is true about a person? Would I change in the same way the river changes color but still be the same person?... And then I realized it was the first time I could see the power of the wind. I couldn't see the wind itself, but I could see it carried water that filled the rivers and shaped the countryside.
Amy Tan
Image
And I remember wondering why it was that eating something good could make me feel so terrible, while vomiting something terrible could make me feel so good.
Amy Tan
Image
Chaos is the penance for leisure.
Amy Tan
Image
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
Image
My parents told me I would become a doctor and then in my spare time I would become a concert pianist. So, both my day job and my spare time were sort of taken care of.
Amy Tan
Image
You see what power is holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them.
Amy Tan
Image
With each passing day, I didn't lose hope. I fought to have more.
Amy Tan
Image
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.
Amy Tan
Image
I used to think that my mother got into arguments with people because they didn't understand her English, because she was Chinese.
Amy Tan
Image
It means we're looking one way, while following another. We're for one side and also the other. We mean what we say, but our intentions are different.
Amy Tan
Image
God, life changes faster than you think.
Amy Tan
Image
Isn't hate merely the result of wounded love?
Amy Tan
Image
You don't care what people think. You don't see your beloved's faults, the slight stinginess, the bit of carelessness, the occasional streak of meanness. You don't mind that he is beneath you socially, educationally, financially, and morally--that's the worst, I think, deficient morals. (Saving Fish From Drowning)
Amy Tan
Image
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.
Amy Tan