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I always thought it mattered, to know what is the worst possible thing that can happen to you, to know how you can avoid it, to not be drawn by the magic of the unspeakable.

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
Thought
Unspeakable
Thing
Drawn
Always
Avoid
Magic
Worst
Happen
Possible
Happens
Mattered

More quotes by Amy Tan

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To come so far, to lose so much and to find nothing. -Jing-mei
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It is because I had so much joy that I came to have so much hate.
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You can get sucked into the idea that, 'Gosh, this is impressive. Maybe I should do this. It will look good.' Or 'I'll write like this because it will impress that critic.'
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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.
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That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secrets.
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In [writing] fiction, every sentence is its own reward.
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Chaos is the penance for leisure.
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I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you're in control.
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There's no hope. There's no reason to keep trying. Because you must. This is not hope. Not reason. This is your fate. This is your life, what you must do.
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Writing is an extreme privilege but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone.
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Isn't hate merely the result of wounded love?
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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.
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In America nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you.
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My mother said I was a clingy kid until I was about four. I also remember that from the age of eight she and I fought almost every day.
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But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better. -Jing-mei
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For woman is yin, the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds.
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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.
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Whenever I'm with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines.
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My mother had a very difficult childhood, having seen her own mother kill herself. So she didnt always know how to be the nurturing mother that we all expect we should have.
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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.
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