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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
Thing
Drawn
Always
Avoid
Magic
Worst
Happen
Possible
Happens
Mattered
Thought
Unspeakable
More quotes by Amy Tan
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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Why do some memories live only on your tongue or in your nose? Why do others always stay in your heart?
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All objects exist in a moment of time.
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Ying-ying, you have tiger eyes. They gather fire in the day. At night they shine golden.
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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.
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I won't be what I'm not. -Jing-mei
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My sister Kwan believes she has yin eyes. She sees those who have died and now dwell in the world of Yin, ghosts who leave the mists just to visit her kitchen on Balboa Street in San Francisco.
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I didn't fear failure. I expected failure.
Amy Tan
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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After all, Bao Bomu says, what is the past but what we choose to remember?
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Placing on writers the responsibility to represent a culture is an onerous burden.
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My parents had very high expectations. They expected me to get straight A's from the time I was in kindergarten.
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My mother would say it is literally ghost writers who come to me.
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You can have pride in what you do each day, but not arrogance in what you were born with.
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We all hate moral ambiguity in some sense, and yet it is also absolutely necessary. In writing a story, it is the place where I begin.
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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
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Yesterday my daughter said to me, 'My marriage is falling apart.' And now all she can do is watch it falling.
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That is the nature of endings, it seems. They never end. When all the missing pieces of your life are found, put together with glue of memory and reason, there are more pieces to be found.
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Secrets are kept from children, a lid on top of the soup kettle, so they do not boil over with too much truth.
Amy Tan
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