I think I've always been somebody, since the deaths of my father and brother, who was afraid to hope. So, I was more prepared for failure and for rejection than for success.

quote by Amy Tan
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

My mother had a very difficult childhood, having seen her own mother kill herself. So she didn't always know how to be the nurturing mother that we all expect we should have.

quote by Amy Tan
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life.

quote by Amy Tan
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

I wanted to write stories for myself. At first it was purely an aesthetic thing about craft. I just wanted to become good at the art of something. And writing was very private.

quote by Amy Tan
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

I loved fairy tales when I was a kid. Grimm. The grimmer the better. I loved gruesome gothic tales and, in that respect, I liked Bible stories, because to me they were very gothic.

quote by Amy Tan
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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.

quote by Amy Tan
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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.'

quote by Amy Tan
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

I saw my mother in a different light. We all need to do that. You have to be displaced from what's comfortable and routine, and then you get to see things with fresh eyes, with new eyes.

quote by Amy Tan
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

People think it's a terrible tragedy when somebody has Alzheimer's. But in my mother's case, it's different. My mother has been unhappy all her life. For the first time in her life, she's happy.

quote by Amy Tan
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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.

quote by Amy Tan
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!