Quotes by Amy Tan

About Amy Tan:

Amy Tan is an American writer whose works explore mother-daughter relationships and the Chinese-American experience. Her best-known work is The Joy Luck Club, which has been translated into 35 languages. In 1993, the book was adapted into a commercially successful film.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Ahora sabes por qué razón es inútil llorar. Tus lágrimas no se llevan tus penas, sino que alimentan la alegría de otros. Por eso has de aprender a tragártelas.

Amy Tan

You remember only what you want to remember. You know only what your heart allows you to know.

Amy Tan

When the anesthesia of love wears off, you suffer the pain of consequence.

Amy Tan

Was there ever a great true love? Anyone who became the object of my obsession and not simply my affections?...I could not let myself become that unmindful. Isn't that what love is - losing your mind? You don't care what people think. You don't see y...

Amy Tan

...A mother is the one who fills your heart in the first place. She teaches you the nature of happiness: what is the right amount, what is too much, and the kind that makes you want more of what is bad for you. A mother helps her baby flex her first ...

Amy Tan

...A painting was a translation of the language of my heart.

Amy Tan

You see what power is – holding someone else’s fear in your hand and showing it to them

Amy Tan

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 ...

Amy Tan

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.

Amy Tan

Thanks to my mother, I was raised to have a morbid imagination. When I was a child, she often talked about death as warning, as an unavoidable matter of fact. Little Debbie's mom down the block might say, 'Honey, look both ways before crossing the st...

Amy Tan

Quiero que nuestro amor sea tan grande que nos duela por dentro

Amy Tan

What happened to Violet was terrible, and I’m not saying fate happens without blame. But when fate turns out well, everyone should forget the bad road that got us here.

Amy Tan

Our love would be solace, companionship, and the mending of wounds.

Amy Tan

...and it's ridiculous that anyone would praise a child for standing with arms spread out on a wooden cross, as if she were Jesus's dead sister wearing a checkerboard tablecloth.

Amy Tan

Even when I worked in that world, I still wanted love so strong that the man would have no interest in another woman. Maybe you will always be incapable of giving that kind of love. You tell me I want too much. And maybe I do. But like you and your i...

Amy Tan

...I was like a bird, my wings once carried on a wind of lies. I would beat those wings to stay aloft, and when the wind suddenly died or buffeted me around, I would keep beating those strong wings and fly in my own slice of wind

Amy Tan

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

Amy Tan

Maybe all Americans who suffer from melancholy act as if they have gone mad. But I truly thought he might throw himself in the river, and I don't want his ghost visiting to keep telling me he's sorry.

Amy Tan

I write because I know that one day I will die, and thus I should experience as many deliberate observations, careful thoughts, wild ideas, and deep emotions as I can before that day occurs.

Amy Tan

I was intelligent enough to make up my own mind. I not only had freedom of choice, I had freedom of expression.

Amy Tan

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.

Amy Tan

Author Bio

  • NameAmy Tan
  • DescriptionAmerican novelist
  • BornFebruary 19, 1952
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist; Essayist
  • WorksThe Joy Luck Club