Amy Tan Quotes

If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.

While it is good to speak well, it is better to speak the truth.

Hope is the adrenalin of the soul.

I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength..."strongest wind cannot be seen."

You have to be your own person. You can't let people's opinions determine how you think about yourself. There's a difference between identity and self-identity.

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.

You remember only what you want to remember. You know only what your heart allows you to know.

So sad! This is the saddest part when you lose someone you love- that person keeps changing. And later you wonder, Is this the same person I lost?

How can you blame a person for his fears and weaknesses unless you have felt the same and done differently?

The life we receive is not always what we choose.

Chance is the first step you take, luck is what comes afterward.

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.

I am fascinated by language in daily life: the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth.

What is a secret wish?" "It is what you want but cannot ask.

I think we often write because we feel a loneliness, and people read for the same reason, and then they come away feeling a little less lonely.

Libraries are the pride of the city.

Memory feeds imagination.

I hid my deepest feelings so well I forgot where I placed them.

We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.

You should think about your character. Know where you are changing, how you will be changed, what cannot be changed back again.

No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.

That is the way it is with a wound. The wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much. And once it is closed, you no longer see what is underneath, what started the pain.

With each passing day, I didn't lose hope. I fought to have more.

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.

I was raised the Chinese way: I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people's misery, to eat my own bitterness. And even though I taught my daughter the opposite, still she came out the same way! Maybe it is because she was born to me and she was born a girl. And I was born to my mother and I was born a girl. All of us are like stairs, one step after another, going up and down, but all going the same way.