I am an American, steeped in American values. But I know on an emotional level what it means to be of the Chinese culture.

Amy Tan

Categorized in : Know I Am Culture Values

So sad! This 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?

someone-you-love wonder lost

If you can't change your fate, change your attitude. by Amy Tan

If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.

change inspirational life

I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength.... by Amy Tan

I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength..."strongest wind cannot be seen."

strength mother art

Writing is an extreme privilege but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone.

stories writing giving

How can you blame a person for his fears and weaknesses unless you have felt the same and done differently?

blame weakness done

You should think about your character. Know where you are changing, how you will be changed, what cannot be changed back again.

should character thinking

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 grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English. They see that joy and luck do not mean the same to their daughters, that to these closed American-born minds "joy luck" is not a word, it does not exist. They see daughters who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation.

daughter mother fear

Libraries are the pride of the city. by Amy Tan

Libraries are the pride of the city.

library pride cities

With each passing day, I didn't lose hope. I fought to have more. by Amy Tan

With each passing day, I didn't lose hope. I fought to have more.

passings passing hope

No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.

different two reality

Words to me were magic. You could say a word and it could conjure up all kinds of images or feelings or a chilly sensation or whatever. It was amazing to me that words had this power.

magic kind feelings

I am fascinated by language in daily life: the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth.

simple writing ideas

I think we often write because we feel a loneliness, and people read for the same reason, and then they come away feeling a little less lonely.

lonely loneliness writing

I hid my deepest feelings so well I forgot where I placed them. by Amy Tan

I hid my deepest feelings so well I forgot where I placed them.

good-advice lovely feelings

We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.

hope dream inspiring

Mothers have the huge influence, and I feel like they're always teaching us from the day we're born what to be afraid of, what to be cautious of, what we should like and what we should look like. Then we spend half of our life trying to be not like them, and then we reach another part of our lives where we see these things we can't get rid of.

teaching mother trying

How do I create something out of nothing? And how do I create my own life? I think it is by questioning, and saying to myself that there are no absolute truths.

motivation inspiration thinking

It's both rebellion and conformity that attack you with success. by Amy Tan

It's both rebellion and conformity that attack you with success.

rebellion conformity success

I was punched breathless by the strongest emotions I have ever felt and they are now stored in my intuition as a writer.

breathless intuition emotion

The muse appears at the point in my writing when I sense a subtle shift, a nudge to move over, and everything cracks open, the writing is freed, the lanuage is full, resources are plentiful, ideas pour forth, and to be frank, some of these ideas surprise me. It seems as thought the universe is my friend and is helping me write, its hand over mine.

writing ideas moving