26 Quotes by Amy Tan
Amy Tan is an American author of Chinese descent who has written several novels, including “The Joy Luck Club,” which explores the relationships between Chinese-American women and their immigrant mothers. Tan’s writing often explores the tension between different cultural expectations and the difficulties of navigating identity in a multicultural world. (Bio)
Amy Tan Quotes
There are a lot of people who think that’s what’s needed to be successful is always being right, always being careful, always picking the right path. (Meaning)
If you can’t change your fate, change your attitude. (Meaning)
I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength…”strongest wind cannot be seen.”
The life we receive is not always what we choose.
Writing is an extreme privilege but it’s also a gift. It’s a gift to yourself and it’s a gift of giving a story to someone.
Hope is the adrenalin of the soul.
So sad! This is the saddest part when you lose someone you love- that person keeps changing. And later you wonder, Is this the same person I lost?
How can you blame a person for his fears and weaknesses unless you have felt the same and done differently?
You have to be your own person. You can’t let people’s opinions determine how you think about yourself. There’s a difference between identity and self-identity.
You remember only what you want to remember. You know only what your heart allows you to know.
I began to look at all events and all things as relevant, an opportunity to take or avoid.
Chance is the first step you take, luck is what comes afterward.
Words to me were magic. You could say a word and it could conjure up all kinds of images or feelings or a chilly sensation or whatever. It was amazing to me that words had this power.
I am fascinated by language in daily life: the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth.
I read a book a day when I was a kid. My family was not literary; we did not have any books in the house.
No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.
I hid my deepest feelings so well I forgot where I placed them.
Libraries are the pride of the city.
Love is tricky. It is never mundane or daily. You can never get used to it. You have to walk with it, then let it walk with you. You can never balk. It moves you like the tide. It takes you out to sea, then lays you on the beach again. Today’s struggling pain is the foundation for a certain stride through the heavens. You can run from it but you can never say no. It includes everyone.
With each passing day, I didn’t lose hope. I fought to have more.
Over time, passion wanes, differences don’t.
I think we often write because we feel a loneliness, and people read for the same reason, and then they come away feeling a little less lonely.
You should think about your character. Know where you are changing, how you will be changed, what cannot be changed back again.
That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secrets.
We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming – well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.
And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English. They see that joy and luck do not mean the same to their daughters, that to these closed American-born minds “joy luck” is not a word, it does not exist. They see daughters who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation.
― Amy Tan Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an impact-driven creator at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 life goals around the globe. Tal's journey and recent book, The Art of Fully Living, inspired him to found Elevate Society.
