Amy Tan Quotes

Why do you think you are missing something you never had?

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.

Isn't hate merely the result of wounded love?

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

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

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.

I wanted to capture what language ability tests could never reveal: her intent, her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her speech and the nature of her thoughts.

If someone offers to take your burden, you need to know he is serious, not just being polite and kind. Polite and kind do not last.

I was the daughter of my father's wife. I spoke in a trembly voice. I became pale, ill, and more thin. I let myself become a wounded animal. I let the hunter come to me and turn me into a tiger ghost. I willingly gave up my chi , the spirit that caused me so much pain.
Now I was a tiger that neither pounced nor lay waiting between the trees. I became an unseen spirit.

If I look upon my whole life, I cannot think of another time when I felt more comfortable: when I had no worries, fears, or desires, when my life seemed as soft and lovely as lying inside a cocoon of rose silk.

Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain.

I now believe truth lies not in logic but in hope, both past and future. I believe hope can surprise you. It can survive the odds against it, all sorts of contradictions, and certainly any skeptic's rationale of relying on proof through fact.

Dementia. Ruth puzzled over the diagnosis: How could such a beautiful-sounding word apply to such a destructive disease? It was a name befitting a goddess: Dementia, who caused her sister Demeter to forget to turn winter into spring.

When my daughter looks at me, she sees a small old lady. That is because she sees only with her outside eyes. She has no chuming , no inside knowing of things. If she had chuming, she would see a tiger lady. And she would have careful fear.

But I don't have anything left inside of me to figure out where I fit in or what I want. If I want anything, it's to know what's possible to want.