Amy Tan
43 quotes
Biography
"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."
"We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate."
"If you can't change your fate, change your attitude."
"Everyone must dream. We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that's like saying you can never change your fate. Isn't that true?"
"Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever."
"Isn't hate merely the result of wounded love?"
"You remember only what you want to remember. You know only what your heart allows you to know."
"too much happiness always overflowed into tears of sorrow."
"I think now that fate is half shaped by expectation, half by inattention. But somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over. You have to pay attention to what you lost. You have to undo the expectation."
"And for all those years, we never talked about the disaster at the recital or my terrible accusations afterward at the piano bench. All that remained unchecked, like a betrayal that was now unbreakable. So I never found a way to ask her why she had hoped something so large that failure was inevitable. And even worse, I never asked her what frightened me the most: Why had she given up hope?"
"I am like a falling star who has finally found her place next to another in a lovely constellation, where we will sparkle in the heavens forever."
"My father has asked me to be the fourth corner at the Joy Luck Club. I am to replace my mother, whose seat at the mah jong table has been empty since she died two months ago. My father thinks she was killed by her own thoughts. <!-- Chapter 1 -->"
"Over the years, she told me the same story, except for the ending, which grew darker, casting long shadows into her life, and eventually into mine. <!-- Chapter 1, pg. 21 -->"
"Your father is not my first husband. You are not those babies.<!-- Ch. 1, pg. 26 -->"
"Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain. <!-- Ch. 2, pg. 48 -->"
"I was no longer scared. I could see what was inside me. <!-- Ch. 3, pg. 59 -->"
"After the gold was removed from my body I felt lighter, more free. They say this is what happens if you lack metal. You begin to think as an independent person. <!-- Ch. 3, pg. 63 -->"
"For woman is yin, the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds. <!-- Ch. 4, pg. 81 -->"
"I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you're in control. <!-- Ch. 7, pg. 121 -->"
"My mother had a look on her face that I'll never forget. It was one of complete despair and horror, for losing Bing, for being so foolish as to think she could use faith to change fate. <!-- Ch. 7, pg. 130 -->"
"I had new thoughts, willful thoughts, or rather thoughts filled with lots of won'ts. I won't let her change me, I promised myself. I won't be what I'm not. <!-- Ch. 8, pg. 134 -->"
"Only two kind of daughters. Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter! <!-- Ch. 8, pg. 142 -->"
"I remember wondering why it was that eating something good could make me feel so terrible, while vomiting something terrible could make me feel so good. <!-- Ch. 8, pg. 154 -->"
"Now that I'm angry at Harold, it's hard to remember what was so remarkable about him. <!-- Ch. 9, pg. 155 -->"
"I saw what I had been fighting for: it was for me, a scared child... <!-- Ch. 10, pg. 183 -->"