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
play use want
Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, then why don't you learn to play chess." - Ch. 5
want imagine disappear
Can you imagine how it is, to want to be neither inside nor outside, to want to be nowhere and disappear?
opportunity want-something events
I let one thing result from another. Of course, all of it could have been just loosely connected coincidences. And whether that's true or not, I know the intention was there. Becasue when I want something to happen-or not happen- I begin to look at all events and all things as relevant, an opportunity to take or avoid.
want fit figures
But I don't have anything left inside of me to figure out where I fit in or what I want. If I want anything, it's to know what's possible to want.
book want mood
My favorite anything is always relative to the context of present time, place and mood. When I finish a book and want to immediately find another by the same author and no other, that author is elevated to my favorite.
heart want doe
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.
secret wish want
What is a secret wish?" "It is what you want but cannot ask.
want logic form
It was a distorted form of inverse logic: If hopes never come true, then hope for what you don't want.
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.
contains saw
My writing often contains souvenirs of the day - a song I heard, a bird I saw - which I then put into the novel.