Amy Tan Quotes

It was a distorted form of inverse logic: If hopes never come true, then hope for what you don't want.

But I will win and give her my spirit, because this is the way a mother loves her daughter.
-Ying Ying

Only two kinds of daughters, she shouted in Chinese. Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!

I saw what I had been fighting for: It was for me, a scared child, who had run away a long time ago to what I had imagined was a safer place. And hiding in this place, behind my invisible barriers, I knew what lay on the other side: Her side attacks. Her secret weapons. Her uncanny ability to find my weakest spots. But in the brief instant that I had peered over the barriers I could finally see what was finally there: an old woman, a wok for her armor, a knitting needle for her sword, getting a little crabby as she waited patiently for her daughter to invite her in.

They know where happiness lies, not in a cave or a country, but in love and the freedom to give and take what has been there all along.

We are living in a world where everything is false. The society is like bright paint applied on top of rotten wood.

He asked if he could recite a poem he had written that morning: 'You speak,' he said, 'the language of shooting stars, more surprising than sunrise, more brilliant than the sun, as brief as sunset. I want to follow its trail to eternity.

When you already believe something, how can you suddenly stop? When you are a loyal friend, how can you no longer be one?

That is the nature of endings, it seems. They never end. When all the missing pieces of your life are found, put together with glue of memory and reason, there are more pieces to be found.

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

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.

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.

"I take a few quick sips. "This is really good." And I mean it. I have never tasted tea like this. It is smooth, pungent, and instantly addicting.

"This is from Grand Auntie," my mother explains. "She told me 'If I buy the cheap tea, then I am saying that my whole life has not been worth something better.' A few years ago she bought it for herself. One hundred dollars a pound."

"You're kidding." I take another sip. It tastes even better."

For all these years I kept my mouth closed so selfish desires would not fall out. And because I remained quiet for so long now my daughter does not hear me... All these years I kept my true nature hidden, running along like a small shadow so nobody could catch me. And because I moved so secretly now my daughter does not see me... We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing; unheard and not hearing, unknown by others.

He has always been politely indifferent. But what's the Chinese word that means indifferent because you can't see any differences?