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Amy Tan Biography

Amy Tan (born February 19, 1952) is an American writer whose works explore mother-daughter relationships and the Chinese American experience. Her novel The Joy Luck Club was adapted into a film in 1993 by director Wayne Wang.

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Amy Tan Quotes

I started a second novel seven times and I had to throw them away.

Writing, Seven, Novel, Times, Throw

Whenever my mother talks to me, she begins the conversation as if we were already in the middle of an argument.

Already, Argument, Begins, Middle, Mother, Talks

Ying-ying, you have tiger eyes. They gather fire in the day. At night they shine golden.

Eye, Eyes, Fire, Night, Tiger

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.

Aesthetic, Art, Craft, Stories, Writing

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.

Daughter, Hard, Hold, Mother, Pain, Skin

Your only shame is to have shame.

Shame

I don't steer clear of genres. I simply haven't steered myself toward some of them.

Clear, Genre, Havens, Simply, Steer

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.

Encouragement, Thinking, Fiction, Think, Discouragement

I had always assumed we had an unspoken understanding about these things: that she didn't really mean I was a failure, and I really meant I would try to respect her opinions more. But listening to Auntie Lin tonight reminds me once agian: My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other's meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more. No doubt she told Auntie Lin I was going back to school to get a doctorate.

Mother, Mean, School, Said, Understanding, Meanings

We all become different readers in how we respond to books, why we need them, what we take from them. We become different in the questions that arise as we read, in the answers that we find, in the degree of satisfaction or unease we feel with those answers. . . In the hands of a different reader, the same story can be a different story.

Arise, Book, Degrees, Hands, Readers, Satisfaction

Now I was a tiger that neither pounced nor lay waiting between the trees. I became an unseen spirit.

Spirit, Tree, Trees, Unseen, Waiting

I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these things do not mix?

Children, Character, Chinese, American, Combination

They know where happiness lies, not in a cave or a country, but in love and the freedom to give and take what has been there all along.

Country, Freedom, Giving, Know, Love, Lying

For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could only be me.

Believe, Joy Luck Club, Mother

I can never remember things I didn't understand in the first place.

Firsts, Place, Remember, Things, Understand, Understanding

But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better. -Jing-mei

Regret, Get Better, Way, Back, Things

My mother had a very difficult childhood, having seen her own mother kill herself. So she didnt always know how to be the nurturing mother that we all expect we should have.

Childhood, Expect, Kill, Mother, Nurturing, Should Have

Whenever I'm with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines.

Daughter, Mines, Mom, Mother, Whenever

Language is the tool of my trade -and I use them all - all the Englishes I grew up with

Englishes, Grew, Language, Tools, Use

I learned to make things not matter, to put a seal on my hopes and place them on a high shelf, out of reach. And by telling myself that there was nothing inside those hopes anyway, I avoided the wounds of deep disappointment. The pain was no worse than the quick sting of a booster shot. And yet thinking about this makes me ache again. How is it that as a child I knew I should have been loved more? Is everyone born with a bottomless emotional resevoir?

Children, Disappointment, Everyone, Nothing, Pain, Resevoir

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Amy Tan Biography

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