Quotes from Amy Tan

you showed me who I truly am. You did not remove my doubts. You forced me to see how I waver.

Probably jet lag.

All this talk of oblivion, of wanting nothing and becoming nobody, seems rather contradictory from a Buddhist sense. The Buddha did all this himself and he became so much a nobody that he became famous, the biggest nobody of them all. And he will never disappear, because fame has made him immortal. But I do admire him for his attitude and discipline. He was a good Indian son.

And I'd let him- not because I weakened and wanted sex, but because it would have been spiteful, beyond redemption, not to allow us this hope.

How funny to see the foreigner in a farmer's work hat, like a fish that has put on clothes. Around

Absolutely. I remember." "Funny, I thought you did." "Ah, you assumed!" He laughed. "Your mother isn't the only one with memory problems. Well, if I said it, then I was wrong, because I do think it's important to have certain assumptions—for one thing, that the person who's with you is there for the long haul, that he'll take care of you and what comes with you, the whole package, mother and

the most perfect replica of the most perfect woman in all eternity.

Those are the five writing tips: Avoid clichés, avoid generalisations, find your own voice, show compassion, and ask the important questions.

As with all hardships, he took this as yet another test of faith. He almost seemed glad he had been called upon on to endure it. And show how great his faith was. He would pass the test and save his son.

And before they ate the last supper of life-ending mushrooms, they would pound the drums and sound the hours. They would ready the souls of their bodies, the soul of the eyes, the soul of the mouths, all of them, one by one. They would know to be ready, to not dillydally and get left behind. Soon the soldiers would arrive. They would stab them with their bayonets, shoot them with their rifles, but they would already be gone, their bodies empty like the hollow husks of the emeralds beetles.

It felt like all the truth got whitewashed with fake happiness, she said, only it was not happy and it was worse than fake. It was dangerous

My friend, my editor, still had the cancer. Each day she had to cross a terrible chasm, a bottomless hole of not knowing what to hope or believe. I tried to imagine what she saw, but I did not have her perspective.

But why didn't I flood in the same way? Why was their happiness tenfold what I felt? Did I lack the proper connection between the senses and the heart? And then I realized that this was my habit. To hold back my feelings.

Isn't the past what people remember- who did what, how and why? And what the people remember, isn't that mostly what they've already chosen to believe?

never make the cost of saving face so high that a man must go elsewhere to show how generous he is.

Ruth believed Wendy made her life more sparkly, but today was not a good time for sparkles.

Grief is when your eyes still see but have stopped looking.

Years before, she had dreamed of writing stories as a way to escape. She could revise her life and become someone else. She could be somewhere else. In her imagination she could change everything, herself, her mother, her past. But the idea of revising her life also frightened her, as if by imagination alone she were condemning what she did not like about herself or others. Writing what you wished was the most dangerous form of wishful thinking.

So this is what I will do. I will gather together my past and look. I will see a thing that has already happened. The pain that cut my spirit loose. I will hold that pain until it becomes hard and shiny, more clear, and then my fierceness can come back. My golden side, my black side.

Do you know what morals are, Violet? They're other people's rules. Do you know what a conscience is? Freedom to use your own intelligence to determine what is right or wrong. You possess that freedom and no one can remove it from you. Whenever others disapprove of you, you must disregard them and be the only one to judge your own decisions and actions …

Her mother looked pleased at the prospect of being vital to her daughter's success. Ruth sighed, relieved yet sad. Why hadn't she ever asked her mother to make drawings before? She should have done it when her mother's hand and mind were still steady. It broke her heart to see her mother trying so hard, being so conscientious, so determined to be valuable. Making her mother happy would have been easy all along. LuLing simply wanted to be essential, as a mother should be.

I remind myself that I know the difference between elusion and delusion. It is the separation between desire and belief. I know what separates the past from the present. What lies between then and now, it is but a moment, an easy thing to lose.

If people we love die, then they are lost only to our ordinary senses. If we remember, we can find them anytime with our hundred secret senses. "This a secret

Too much happiness, said the man who returned, always overflows into tears of sorrow.