I was shocked, and I ended up contacting three academics to find out if it could possibly be that my grandmother was a courtesan. Amy Tan Read Quote
When you read about the lives of other people, people of different circumstances or similar circumstances, you are part of their lives for that moment. You inhabit their lives, and you feel what they’re feeling, and that is compassion. If we see that reading does allow us that, we see how absolutely essential reading is. Amy Tan Read Quote
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. Amy Tan Read Quote
There are a lot of people who think that’s what’s needed to be successful is always being right, always being careful, always picking the right path. Amy Tan Read Quote
My grandmother. She’s someone I never met, and I would’ve loved to have met her. She’s been a huge influence on our entire family, not just me. She is a mystery. It’s not clear exactly what about her is truth and myth. Amy Tan Read Quote
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. Amy Tan Read Quote
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. Amy Tan Read Quote
Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses. Amy Tan Read Quote
