Amy Tan Quotes

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

I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water.

Whenever I'm with my [teenager] I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines.

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

A mother is always the beginning. She is how things begin.

how can the world in all its chaos come up with so many coincidences, so many similarities and exact opposites?

Was there ever a great true love? Anyone who became the object of my obsession and not simply my affections?...I could not let myself become that unmindful. Isn't that what love is - losing your mind? You don't care what people think. You don't see your beloved's faults, the slight stinginess, the bit of carelessness, the occasional streak of meanness. You don't mind that he is beneath you socially, educationally, financially, and morally - that's the worst, I think, deficient morals.

Even if I could live forever,” she said to the baby, “I still don’t know which way I would teach you. I was once so free and innocent. I too laughed for no reason."“But later I threw away my foolish innocence to protect myself. And then I taught my daughter, your mother, to shed her innocence so she would not be hurt as well.