Amy Tan
Amy Tan
Amy Tanis 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 25 languages. In 1993, the book was adapted into a commercially successful film...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 February 1952
CityOakland, CA
CountryUnited States of America
responsibility culture burden
Placing on writers the responsibility to represent a culture is an onerous burden.
kids stories fairy-tale
I loved fairy tales when I was a kid. Grimm. The grimmer the better. I loved gruesome gothic tales and, in that respect, I liked Bible stories, because to me they were very gothic.
moving thinking knowing
I think Kwan intended to show me the world is not a place but the vastness of the sou. And the soul is nothing more than love, limitless, endless, all that moves us toward knowing what is true....If people we love die, then they are lost only to our ordinary senses. If we remember, we can find them anytime with our hundred secret senses.
art writing stories
I wanted to write stories for myself. At first it was purely an aesthetic thing about craft. I just wanted to become good at the art of something. And writing was very private.
thinking people mind
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)
strong eye heart
Seeing her this last time, I threw myself on her body. And she opened her eyes slowly. I was not scared. I knew she could see me and what she had finally done. So i shut her eyes with my fingers and told her with my heart: I cah see the truth, too. I am strong, too.
struggle men ifs
Words are more ardent if a man must struggle to find them.
stupid warning heed
Those who don't heed the warnings don't live to admit they were stupid not to do so.
teenager soul sometimes
Now they seemed to be in a contest over who could irritate her more, and she sometimes had to remind herself that teenagers had souls
success brother father
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.
people half firsts
We are the kind of people who obsess over one word... but we have only one shot to get it right in concert. It was hard the first time I practiced with them. I was so nervous that my vocal chords were paralyzed for about a half-hour.
intuition emotion breathless
I was punched breathless by the strongest emotions I have ever felt and they are now stored in my intuition as a writer.
wise blow wind
Wise guy, he not go against wind. In Chinese we say, Come from South, blow with wind -- poom! -- North will follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen.
blood chinese my-family
And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.