“ Whenever I'm with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines. Amy Tan
“ And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who… Amy Tan
“ [Karen Lundegaard] was quite frail, debilitated by metastatic breast cancer, which she had long known she had but for which she had been unable to get adequate treatment because she lacked medical ins… Amy Tan
“ Life's always a big fucking compromise. You don't always get what you want, no matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how good you are. That's a myth. We're all hanging in the best way we can. Amy Tan
“ And now at the airport, after shaking hands with everybody, waving good-bye, I think about all the different ways we leave people in this world. Cheerily waving good-bye to some at airports, knowing w… Amy Tan
“ You remember only what you want to remember. You know only what your heart allows you to know. Amy Tan
“ 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 Amy Tan
“ Poetry. I read Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Jane Hirschfield. I like to read Billy Collins out loud. Amy Tan
“ Writing is the witness to myself about myself. Whatever others say of me or how they interpret me is a simulacrum of their own devising. Amy Tan
“ The best life you can have as you get into old age is good food, good teeth to eat it with, and few worries when you go to bed at night. 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
“ What should we do?, I asked, and I had a pained feeling I thought was the beginning of love. In those early months we clung to each other with a rather silly desperation, because, in spite of everythi… Amy Tan
“ A mother is the one who fills your heart in the first place. She teaches you the nature of happiness: what is the right amount, what is too much, and the kind that makes you want more of what is bad f… Amy Tan
