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I feel I've always been writing about self-identity. How do we become who we are? So I'm just writing from experience what's concerned 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
Always
Identity
Concerned
Experience
Become
Self
Feel
Feels
Writing

More quotes by Amy Tan

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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.
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All these years I kept my true nature hidden, running along like a small shadow so nobody could catch me. -Ying Ying
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Only two kinds of daughters, she shouted in Chinese. Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!
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Why do you think you are missing something you never had?
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Chance is the first step you take, luck is what comes afterward.
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The life we receive is not always what we choose.
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You see what power is holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them.
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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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They know where happiness lies, not in a cave or a country, but in love and the freedom to give and take what has been there all along.
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Shanghainese people are good negotiators, they're very persistent, and you grow up in an atmosphere like that - very competitive. That becomes part of your personality, Shanghai personality becomes part of yours.
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I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these things do not mix?
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Fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention.
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Her education only made her unhappy thinking about it - that no matter how much she changed her life, she could not change the world that surrounded her.
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Writing what you wished was the most dangerous form of wishful thinking.
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To save myself, I destroyed another, and in doing so, I destroyed myself.
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The muse appears at the point in my writing when I sense a subtle shift, a nudge to move over, and everything cracks open, the writing is freed, the lanuage is full, resources are plentiful, ideas pour forth, and to be frank, some of these ideas surprise me. It seems as thought the universe is my friend and is helping me write, its hand over mine.
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From what I have observed, when the anesthesia of love wears off, there is always the pain of consequences. You don't have to be stupid to marry the wrong man.
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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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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.
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I began to look at all events and all things as relevant, an opportunity to take or avoid.
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