Quotes from Amy Tan

Una persona ha de reflexionar sobre el origen de las cosas. Cada comienzo conduce a un fin determinado.

We listened patiently to Lester, words skittering out of his mouth like cartoon dogs on fresh-waxed linoleum, frantically going nowhere.

Cómo podría no amar a ese hombre? Pero era el amor de un fantasma, unos brazos que rodeaban pero no tocaban, un cuenco lleno de arroz pero sin apetito para comerlo, sin plenitud.

May the dog-mother rut with a dead devil!

Qué es el pasado si no aquello que elegimos recordar?

Sólo recuerdas lo que quieres recordar. Sólo sabes lo que tu corazón te permite saber.

Forget about love. You will receive that many times, but none of it is lasting.

Sí, vi los signos, pero me limité a dejar que las cosas sucedieran. Y pienso que el destino está formado a medias por las expectativas y a medias por la falta de atención. Pero, de algún modo, cuando pierdes algo que amas, interviene la fe. Tienes que prestar atención a lo que has perdido. Tienes que deshacer la expectativa.

Now I have perfect understanding. I have already experienced the worst. After this, there is no worst possible thing.

See the gold metal I can now wear. I gave birth to your brothers and then your father gave me these two bracelets. Then I had you. And every few years, when I have a little extra money, I buy another bracelet. I know what I'm worth. They're always twenty-four carats, all genuine.

And in my family, there were two pillars of beliefs: Christian faith on my father's side, Chinese fate on my mother's. Picture these two ideologies as you might the goalposts of a soccer field, faith at one end, fate at the other, and me running between them trying to duck whatever dangerous missile had been launched in the air.

But now that I am old, moving every year closer to the end of my life, I also feel closer to the beginning. And I remember everything that happened that day because it has happened many times in my life. The same innocence, trust, and restlessness, the wonder, fear, and loneliness. How I lost myself. I remember all these things. And tonight, on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, I also remember what I asked the Moon Lady so long ago. I wished to be found.

But I'll never forget. On the day of the Festival of Pure Brightness, I take off all my bracelets. I remember the day when I finally knew a genuine thought and could follow where it went. That was the day I was a young girl with my face under a red marriage scarf. I promised not to forget myself. How nice it is to be that girl again, to take off my scarf, to see what is underneath and feel the lightness come back into my body!

Chinese people do many things," she said simply. "Chinese people do business, do medicine, do painting. Not lazy like American people. We do torture. Best torture.

After a while I didn't think it was a terrible life, no, not really. After a while, I hurt so much I didn't feel any difference.

The elements were from my mother's own version of organic chemistry. Each person is made of five elements, she told me.

The moving cliff gave us the feeling we had to look behind us to know what lay ahead.

I loved my shadow, this dark side of me that had my same restless nature.

The hunger in our hearts was instantly filled.

And I think now that fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention.

ethnicity? And I remembered reading an article about baby boomers, how we expect the best and when we get it we worry that maybe we should have expected more, because it's all diminishing returns after a certain age.

My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other's meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more.

Y me hice una promesa: siempre recordaría los deseos de mis padres, pero jamas me olvidaría de mi misma.

It doesn't matter, I say, and I start to pick up the broken glass shards. I knew it would happen. Then why you don't stop it? asks my mother. And it's such a simple question.