quotes by Amy Tan

"If you can't change your fate, change your attitude. "
— Amy Tan

"Chance is the first step you take, luck is what comes afterward."
— Amy Tan (The Kitchen God's Wife)

"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."
— Amy Tan

"Isn't that how it is when you must decide with your heart? You are not just choosing one thing over another. You are choosing what you want. And you are also choosing what somebody else does not want, and all the consequences that follow. You can tell yourself, That's not my problem, but those words do not wash the trouble away. Maybe it is no longer a problem in your life. But it is always a problem in your heart.
"
— Amy Tan (The Kitchen God's Wife)

"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?"
— Amy Tan (The Hundred Secret Senses)

"Chaos is the penance for leisure."
— Amy Tan (The Bonesetter's Daughter)

"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.""
— Amy Tan

"From what I have observed, when the anesthesia of love wears off, there is always the pain of consequences. You don't have to be stupid to marry the wrong man. (Saving Fish From Drowning)"
— Amy Tan

"I have loved works of fiction precisely for their illusions, for the author's sleight-of-hand in showing me the magic, what appeared in the right hand but not in the left..."
— Amy Tan (Saving Fish from Drowning: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle))

"You don't care what people think. You don't see your beloved's faults, the slight stinginess, the bit of carelessness, the occasional streak of meanness. You don't mind that he is beneath you socially, educationally, financially, and morally--that's the worst, I think, deficient morals. (Saving Fish From Drowning)"
— Amy Tan (Saving Fish from Drowning: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle))

"Writing what you wish was the most dangerous form of wishful thinking."
— Amy Tan (The Bonesetter's Daughter)

"My sister Kwan believes she has yin eyes. "
— Amy Tan (The Kitchen God's Wife)

"All night long I worried, not about myself but about Jimmy. I imagined him looking for me, running through the park, looking in the movie theatres. He was a good man, considerate and kind, but he was not strong. He had never been through any kind of bad hardship before. So I worried."
— Amy Tan (The Kitchen God's Wife)

"You can't have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for the consequences? Saving fish from drowning. Same thing. Who’s saved? Who’s not?"
— Amy Tan (Saving Fish from Drowning: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle))

"We all had our miseries. But to despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable.
-Suyuan"
— Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club)

"Because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones. You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh.
-An-mei"
— Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club)

"I had on a beautiful red dress, but what I saw was even more valuable. I was strong. I was pure. I had genuine thoughts inside that no one could see, that no one could ever take away from me. I was like the wind.
-Lindo"
— Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club)

"But I was no longer sacared. I could see what was inside me.
-Lindo"
— Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club)

"All these years I kept my true nature hidden, running along like a small shadow so nobody could catch me.
-Ying Ying"
— Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club)

"We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing, unheard and not hearing, unknown by others.
-Ying Ying"
— Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club)