All Amy Tan Quotes
My mother said I was a clingy kid until I was about four. I also remember that from the age of eight she and I fought almost every day.
Amy Tan
77% of people like this quote
The forbidden things were a great influence on my life. I was forbidden from reading A Catcher in the Rye.
Amy Tan
62% of people like this quote
I was intelligent enough to make up my own mind. I not only had freedom of choice, I had freedom of expression.
Amy Tan
61% of people like this quote
I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life.
Amy Tan
55% of people like this quote
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.
Amy Tan
54% of people like this quote
She said 'I'm by commission. You don't have to pay anything until you sell anything.' I said, 'Well fine. You want to be my agent and not make anything.' I thought, 'Boy, is she dumb.'
Amy Tan
53% of people like this quote
My parents told me I would become a doctor and then in my spare time I would become a concert pianist. So, both my day job and my spare time were sort of taken care of.
Amy Tan
53% of people like this quote
People think it's a terrible tragedy when somebody has Alzheimer's. But in my mother's case, it's different. My mother has been unhappy all her life. For the first time in her life, she's happy.
Amy Tan
52% of people like this quote
I learned to forgive myself, and that enabled me to forgive my mother as a person.
Amy Tan
52% of people like this quote
In America nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you.
Amy Tan
51% of people like this quote
You can get sucked into the idea that, 'Gosh, this is impressive. Maybe I should do this. It will look good.' Or 'I'll write like this because it will impress that critic.'
Amy Tan
51% of people like this quote
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.
Amy Tan
51% of people like this quote
I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water.
Amy Tan
51% of people like this quote
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