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
hate joy joy-luck-club
It is because I had so much joy that I came to have so much hate.
joy-luck-club known happens
I have always known a thing before it happens.
running weed joy-luck-club
And below the heimongmong, all along the ground, were weeds already spilling out over the edges, running wild in every direction.
pain flesh joy-luck-club
Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain.
fate illusion joy-luck-club
I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you're in control.
hearing unseen joy-luck-club
We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing, unheard and not hearing, unknown by others.
mother believe joy-luck-club
For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could only be me.
luck firsts steps
Chance is the first step you take, luck is what comes afterward.
america giving joy-luck-club
In America nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you.
american-novelist book books hope pay saved somebody
You write a book and you hope somebody will go out and pay $24.95 for what you've just said. I think books were my salvation. Books saved me from being miserable.
face lose pain stone washing worn
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.
writing self identity
I feel I've always been writing about self-identity. How do we become who we are? So I'm just writing from experience what's concerned me.
growing-up people personality
Shanghainese people are good negotiators, they're very persistent, and you grow up in an atmosphere like that - very competitive. That becomes part of your personality, Shanghai personality becomes part of yours.
giving-up book dont-give-up
Sometimes you change to survive, and some things you don't give up, or you're too prideful, and then you think well, what's pride? Is it a good thing? Maybe it's a bad thing. That's what I look at in my life. It's always a question in my life I look at, and I never find the answer, because if I did, probably I wouldn't have books to write.