Amy Tan: Mother

Amy Tan is American novelist. Explore interesting quotes on mother.
Amy Tan: 178 quotes4 likes

“I don't see myself, for example, writing about cultural dichotomies, but about human connections. All of us go through angst and identity crises. And even when you write in a specific context, you still tap into that subtext of emotions that we all feel about love and hope, and mothers and obligations and responsibilities.”

Amy Tan

SALON Interview (1995)
Context: Other Asian-American writers just shudder when they are compared to me; it really denigrates the uniqueness of their own work. I find it happening less here partly because people are more aware now of the flaws of political correctness — that literature has to do something to educate people. I don't see myself, for example, writing about cultural dichotomies, but about human connections. All of us go through angst and identity crises. And even when you write in a specific context, you still tap into that subtext of emotions that we all feel about love and hope, and mothers and obligations and responsibilities.

“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. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh.
-An-mei”

Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club

Source: The Joy Luck Club

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

Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club

Source: The Joy Luck Club

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

Amy Tan The Hundred Secret Senses

Source: The Kitchen God's Wife (1991), p. 9
Source: The Hundred Secret Senses

“One relative felt that the story of my grandmother should not have been revealed. My grandmother was the woman (in The Kitchen God's Wife) who had been raped, forced to be a concubine, and finally killed herself. My mother, though, got equally angry at the relative and said, "For so many years, I carried this shame on my back, and my mother suffered, because she couldn't say anything to anybody." And she said, "It's not too late; tell the world, tell the world what happened to her."”

Amy Tan

And I take her mandate to be the one that is in my heart, the one that I should follow.
SALON Interview (1995)

“On the third day after someone dies, the soul comes back to settle scores. In my mother's case, this would be the first day of the lunar new year. And because it is the new year, all debts must be paid, or disaster and misfortune will follow.”

Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club

Source: The Joy Luck Club (1989), Ch. 13, pg. 240

“I was writing for businesses. I think my mother was a little skeptical in the beginning, but fortunately, as a free-lance writer I was successful almost immediately. And so she was very proud, because she measured success in terms of money, which is what I started to do as well. My goal then, became to increase the amount of money that I made each month. Not simply each year, but each month — I mean, talk about pressure — to have more billable hours each month. So that by the end of my third year of being a free-lance writer, I was billing 90 hours a week. I had no time to sleep. I had no life. People said I was crazy, that I was a workaholic. And I couldn't understand how it was that I had these wonderful clients, and I was making all this money, and I wasn't happy and I didn't feel successful. That's when I started to write fiction.”

Amy Tan

American Acheivement interview (1996)

“My mother had a look on her face that I'll never forget. It was one of complete despair and horror, for losing Bing, for being so foolish as to think she could use faith to change fate.”

Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club

Source: The Joy Luck Club (1989), Ch. 7, pg. 130