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
reading influence forbidden-things
The forbidden things were a great influence on my life. I was forbidden from reading A Catcher in the Rye.
encouragement thinking fiction
No one in my family was a reader of literary fiction. So, I didn't have encouragement, but I didn't have discouragement, because I don't think anybody knew what that meant.
failure expected
I didn't fear failure. I expected failure.
genre clear steers
I don't steer clear of genres. I simply haven't steered myself toward some of them.
mother forgiving persons
I learned to forgive myself, and that enabled me to forgive my mother as a person.
florida dry cuba
I like to go somewhere where I learn something I didn't know before, like the Dry Tortugas between Florida and Cuba.
opposites world chaos
how can the world in all its chaos come up with so many coincidences, so many similarities and exact opposites?
hearing unseen joy-luck-club
We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing, unheard and not hearing, unknown by others.
daughter running selfish
For all these years I kept my mouth closed so selfish desires would not fall out. And because I remained quiet for so long now my daughter does not hear me... All these years I kept my true nature hidden, running along like a small shadow so nobody could catch me. And because I moved so secretly now my daughter does not see me... We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing; unheard and not hearing, unknown by others.
jesus thinking quality
Only you pick that crab. Nobody else take it. I already know this. Everyone else want best quality. You thinking different.
confused believe thinking
Don't think too much. That makes you believe you have more choices than you do. Then you mind becomes confused.
memories littles way
And now I have to stop. Because every time I remember this, I have to cry a little by myself. I don't know why something that made me so happy then feels so sad now. Maybe that is the way it is with the best memories.
memories imagination different
That is the saddest part when you lose someone you love - that person keeps changing. And later you wonder, Is this the same person I lost? Maybe you lost more maybe less, then thousand different things that come from your memory or imagination - and you do not know which is which, which was true, which is false.
betrayal years piano
And for all those years, we never talked about the disaster at the recital or my terrible accusations afterward at the piano bench. All that remained unchecked, like a betrayal that was now unbreakable. So I never found a way to ask her why she had hoped something so large that failure was inevitable. And even worse, I never asked her what frightened me the most: Why had she given up hope?