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.
chords hard nervous obsess paralyzed people practiced shot time vocal
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.
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.
art artists chinese far government might subversive taking thousands
Chinese artists have been subversive over thousands of years, taking what they think of the government and embedding it in their art. There might be censorship of not going as far as they might.
agent american-novelist sell until
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.'
almost assured good imagery knowledge listen nonfiction open particular sentence universe voice writer
I'm open to reading almost anything - fiction, nonfiction - as long as I know from the first sentence or two that this is a voice I want to listen to for a good long while. It has much to do with imagery and language, a particular perspective, the assured knowledge of the particular universe the writer has created.