That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secrets.
– Amy Tan
A mother is always the beginning. She is how things begin.
– Amy Tan
You can never be an artist if your work comes without effort.
– Amy Tan
Sure I loved him – too much. And he loved me, only not enough. I just want someone who thinks I’m number one in his life. I’m not willing to accept emotional scraps anymore.
– Amy Tan
Isn’t hate merely the result of wounded love?
– Amy Tan
If you can’t change your fate, change your attitude.
– Amy Tan
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
You see what power is – holding someone Else fear in your hand and showing it to them.
– Amy Tan
Chance is the first step you take, luck is what comes afterward.
– Amy Tan
You remember only what you want to remember. You know only what your heart allows you to know.
– Amy Tan
Don’t think too much. That makes you believe you have more choices than you do. Then your mind becomes confused.
– Amy Tan
You can have pride in what you do each day, but not arrogance in what you were born with.
– Amy Tan
We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming – well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.
– Amy Tan
Memory feeds imagination.
– Amy Tan
What is the past but what we choose to remember?
– Amy Tan
You can’t stay in the dark for too long. Something inside you starts to fade, and you become like a starving person, crazy-hungry for light.
– Amy Tan
Isn’t hate merely the result of wounded love?
– Amy Tan
Too much happiness always overflowed into tears of sorrow.
– Amy Tan
Free time was the most precious time, when you should be doing what you loved, or at least slowing down enough to remember what made your life worthwhile and happy.
– Amy Tan
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.
– Amy Tan
A little knowledge withheld is a great advantage one should store for future use.
– Amy Tan
I’d like to be more forgiving. There are times when I’ve had a hard time forgiving people who have betrayed me.
– Amy Tan
Death was not necessarily a portal to the blank bliss of absolute nothingness. It was a deep dive into the unknown.
– Amy Tan
We are living in a world where everything is false. The society is like bright paint applied on top of rotten wood.
– Amy Tan
To come so far, to lose so much and to find nothing.
– Amy Tan
Why do some memories live only on your tongue or in your nose? Why do others always stay in your heart?
– Amy Tan
Your tears do not wash away your sorrows. They feed someone Else’s joy. And that is why you must learn to swallow your own tears.
– Amy Tan
If I look upon my whole life, I cannot think of another time when I felt more comfortable: when I had no worries, fears, or desires, when my life seemed as soft and lovely as lying inside a cocoon of rose silk.- Amy Tan
A good government had to guide its people, sometimes gently, sometimes strictly, just as parents did. It could allow certain freedoms, but in a style that suited the country.
– Amy Tan
I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you’re in control.
– Amy Tan
So much of history is mystery. We don’t know what is lost forever, what will surface again. All objects exist in a moment of time. And that fragment of time is preserved or lost or found in mysterious ways. Mystery is a wonderful part of life.
– Amy Tan
Whenever others disapprove of you, you must disregard them and be the only one to judge your own decisions and actions.
– Amy Tan
There’s no hope. There’s no reason to keep trying.
Because you must. This is not hope. Not reason. This is your fate. This is your life, what you must do.
– 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
You should think about your character. Know where you are changing, how you will be changed, what cannot be changed back again.
– Amy Tan
The life we receive is not always what we choose.
– Amy Tan
What is a secret wish? It is what you want but cannot ask.
– Amy Tan
Do you know what morals are Violet? They’re other people’s rules. Do you know what a conscience is? Freedom to use your own intelligence to determine what is right or wrong. You possess that freedom and no one can remove it from you.
– Amy Tan
How can you blame a person for his fears and weaknesses unless you have felt the same and done differently?
– Amy Tan
Forever did not mean what it once had. Forever was what changed inevitably over time.
– Amy Tan
All of us are like stairs, one step after another, going up and down, but all going the same way.
– Amy Tan
They know where happiness lies, not in a cave or a country, but in love and the freedom to give and take what has been there all along.
– Amy Tan
With hope, a mind is always free.
– Amy Tan
Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses.- Amy Tan
A psychiatrist does not want you to wake up. He tells you to dream some more, to find the pond and pour more tears into it. And really, he’s just another bird drinking from your misery.
– Amy Tan
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
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
What was worse, we asked among ourselves, to sit and wait for our own deaths with proper somber faces? Or to choose our own happiness.
– Amy Tan
While it is good to speak well, it is better to speak the truth.
– Amy Tan
You must think for yourself, what you must do. If someone tells you, then you are not trying.
– Amy Tan
When you already believe something, how can you suddenly stop? When you are a loyal friend, how can you no longer be one?
– Amy Tan
You remember only what you want to remember. You know only what your heart allows you to know.
– Amy Tan
Your life is what you see in front of you.
– Amy Tan
I love and am loved, fully and freely, nothing expected, more than enough received.
– Amy Tan
Hardships can harden even the best person.
– Amy Tan
To save myself, I destroyed another, and in doing so, I destroyed myself.
– Amy Tan
God, life changes faster than you think.
– Amy Tan