Amy Tan Quotes - Page 9

That 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? Maybe you lost more maybe less, then thousand different things that come from your memory or imagination - and you do not know which is which, which was true, which is false.

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.

Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, then why don't you learn to play chess." - Ch. 5

Why do some memories live only on your tongue or in your nose? Why do others always stay in your heart?

If I now recognize evil in other people, is it not because I have become evil too?

I thought this man had long ago drained everything from my heart. But now something strong and bitter flowed and made me feel another emptiness in a place I didn't know was there. I cursed this man aloud so he could hear. You had dog eyes. You jumped and followed whoever called you. Now you chase your own tail.

Yet some of my friends tell me they understand 50 percent of what my mother says. Some say they understand 80 to 90 percent. Some say they understand none of it, as if she were speaking pure Chinese. But to me, my mother's English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. It's my mother tongue. Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery. That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world

Fate changes when you change your clothes.

Those who don't heed the warnings don't live to admit they were stupid not to do so.

How I saw in her my own true nature. What was beneath my skin. Inside my bones... Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain. This is how a daughter honors her mother. It is shou so deep it is in your bones. The pain of the flesh is nothing. The pain you must forget. 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 before her. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh.

Now they seemed to be in a contest over who could irritate her more, and she sometimes had to remind herself that teenagers had souls

I think I've always been somebody, since the deaths of my father and brother, who was afraid to hope. So, I was more prepared for failure and for rejection than for success.

I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents' promiise. This means nothing to you, because to you promises mean nothing... But later, she will forget her promise. She will forget she had a grandmother.

What is true about a person? Would I change in the same way the river changes color but still be the same person?... And then I realized it was the first time I could see the power of the wind. I couldn't see the wind itself, but I could see it carried water that filled the rivers and shaped the countryside.

I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength. It was a strategy for winning arguments, respect for others, and eventually, thought neither of us knew it at the time, chess games... "Come from the South, blow from the wind - poom! - North will follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen."

Language is the tool of my trade -and I use them all - all the Englishes I grew up with

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.

To save myself, I destroyed another, and in doing so, I destroyed myself.

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.

And when I say that is certainly true, that our marriage is over. I know what else she will say: "Then you must save it." And even though I know it's hopeless- there's absolutely nothing left to save-I'm afraid if I tell her that, she'll still persuade me to try.

I saw a girl complaining that the pain of not being seen was unbearable... Now I have perfect understanding. I have already experienced the worst. After this, there is no worse possible thing.

Sometimes you change to survive, and some things you don't give up, or you're too prideful, and then you think well, what's pride? Is it a good thing? Maybe it's a bad thing. That's what I look at in my life. It's always a question in my life I look at, and I never find the answer, because if I did, probably I wouldn't have books to write.

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.

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.