When you lose your face..., it is like dropping your necklace down a well. The only way you can get it back is to fall in after it. Amy Tan More Quotes by Amy Tan More Quotes From Amy Tan So this is what I will do. I will gather together my past and look. I will see a thing that has already happened. the pain that cut my spirit loose. I will hold that pain in my hand until it becomes hard and shiny, more clear. And then my fierceness can come back, my golden side, my black side. I will use this sharp pain to penetrate my daughter's tough skin and cut her tiger spirit loose. She will fight me, because this is the nature of two tigers. But I will win and giver her my spirit, because this is the way a mother loves her daughter. Amy Tan daughter pain mother It means we're looking one way, while following another. We're for one side and also the other. We mean what we say, but our intentions are different. Amy Tan different mean way How I saw in her my own true nature. What was beneath my skin. Inside my bones... Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain. This is how a daughter honors her mother. It is shou so deep it is in your bones. The pain of the flesh is nothing. The pain you must forget. Because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones. You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother before her. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh. Amy Tan daughter pain mother That is the way it is with a wound. The wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much. And once it is closed, you no longer see what is underneath, what started the pain. Amy Tan pain hurt way A mother is always the beggining. She is how things begin. Amy Tan mother You must think for yourself, what you must do. If someone tells you, then you are not trying. -An-mei Amy Tan think-for-yourself trying thinking Why do you think you are missing something you never had? Amy Tan missing-something missing thinking I began to look at all events and all things as relevant, an opportunity to take or avoid. Amy Tan events opportunity looks And I remember wondering why it was that eating something good could make me feel so terrible, while vomiting something terrible could make me feel so good. Amy Tan vomiting wonder remember I saw what I had been fighting for: it was for me, a scared child. Amy Tan saws fighting children All these years I kept my true nature hidden, running along like a small shadow so nobody could catch me. -Ying Ying Amy Tan shadow running years But I was no longer sacared. I could see what was inside me. -Lindo Amy Tan I had on a beautiful red dress, but what I saw was even more valuable. I was strong. I was pure. I had genuine thoughts inside that no one could see, that no one could ever take away from me. I was like the wind. -Lindo Amy Tan strong beautiful wind And I think now that fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention. But somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over. -Rose Amy Tan fate expectations thinking But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better. -Jing-mei Amy Tan get-better regret way I won't be what I'm not. -Jing-mei Amy Tan But later that day, the streets of Kweilin were strewn with newspapers reporting great Kuomintang victories, and on top of these papers, like fresh fish from a butcher, lay rows of people - men, women and children who had never lost hope, but had lost their lives instead. Amy Tan men children people how can the world in all its chaos come up with so many coincidences, so many similarities and exact opposites? Amy Tan chaos opposites world If she doesn't speak, she is making a choice. If she doesn't try, she can lose her chance forever. -An-mei Amy Tan choices forever trying After all, Bao Bomu says, what is the past but what we choose to remember? Amy Tan remember past
