Amy Tan quotes

Words to me were magic. You could say a word and it could conjure up all kinds of images or feelings or a chilly sensation or whatever. It was amazing to me that words had this power. (Amy Tan)
Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses.
Amy Tan
If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.
Amy Tan
Whenever I'm with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines. The Kitchen God's Wife.
Amy Tan
You see what power is – holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them.
Amy Tan
How can you blame a person for his fears and weaknesses unless you have felt the same and done differently?
Amy Tan
We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that's like saying you can never change your fate.
Amy Tan
It's both rebellion and conformity that attack you with success.
Amy Tan
I was intelligent enough to make up my own mind. I not only had freedom of choice, I had freedom of expression.
Amy Tan
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
When you lose your face..., it is like dropping your necklace down a well. The only way you can get it back is to fall in after it. (Amy Tan)
God, life changes faster than you think.
Amy Tan
I didn't fear failure. I expected failure.
Amy Tan
When you already believe something, how can you suddenly stop? When you are a loyal friend, how can you no longer be one?
Amy Tan
Too many good things all seem the same after a while.
Amy Tan
I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you're in control.
Amy Tan
Isn't hate merely the result of wounded love?
Amy Tan
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.
Amy Tan
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.
Amy Tan
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.
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. (Amy Tan)
You remember only what you want to remember. You know only what your heart allows you to know.
Amy Tan
Chance is the first step you take, luck is what comes afterward.
Amy Tan
I hid my deepest feelings so well I forgot where I placed them.
Amy Tan
You can have pride in what you do each day, but not arrogance in what you were born with.
Amy Tan