"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."

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More quotes from: Amy Tan

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• "My mother had a very difficult childhood, having seen her own mother kill herself. So ..."
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• "My mother wanted to know. Why wasn't my picture in that window? I was very ..."
• "My mother, meanwhile, all the time kept saying, 'Write my true story. That's all you ..."
• "My mother, though, got equally angry at the relative and said, 'For so many years, ..."
• "My parents had very high expectations. They expected me to get straight A's from the ..."
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• "None of that responsibility crap, 'You owe it to your family. You have to do ..."
• "Not simply each year, but each month - I mean, talk about pressure - to ..."
• "Now, growing up in an American culture, of course, I also had other models. I ..."
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• "Placing on writers the responsibility to represent a culture is an onerous burden. "
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• "She had no choice in the kind of life she was given because she could ..."
• "She hounded me until I wrote a couple more stories and then she sold that ..."
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• "So he said, 'Cheer up, it's not that bad.' And he threw me on the ..."
• "So I grew up thinking that I would never, ever please my parents. That is ..."
• "So if you were to say to me when I was 17, 'You know, one ..."
• "So, for that entire year, because I had learned all the lessons that year - ..."
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• "Sometimes I think it's the ghost of my grandmother, the spirit of my grandmother. She ..."
• "Sometimes I think that it's pure luck, I won the lottery. Sometimes I think it's ..."
• "Suddenly I'm hanging around with these people in this environment where I know nothing about ..."
• "Talk about pressure. Here was a little girl who didn't listen to her mother. According ..."
• "That crisis helped me to define what was important for me. It started off with ..."
• "That was a wonderful period in my life. I mean, I didn't become an artist, ..."
• "That was what achievement was: the plateaus you always had to maintain, the highest standards, ..."
• "That's what I think life is like, too. I have the luxury to do exactly ..."
• "The forbidden things were a great influence on my life. I was forbidden from reading ..."
• "The hurdles and conflicts are really momentary. You get over them and you see what ..."
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• "The other books we had in the house, besides Bibles and medical textbooks of physical ..."
• "The question for me is, 'How am I affected by praise?' I am more fearful ..."
• "The strange thing is, if you ever have a chance to go back to the ..."
• "The success took me by surprise and it frightened me. On the day that there ..."
• "The year after my father and brother died, my mother took us to Europe. And ..."
• "There are a lot of people who think that's what's needed to be successful is ..."
• "There are so many things but the nice thing about being a writer is if ..."
• "There are so many things I would like to do. I would like to go ..."
• "There is one side of me that wanted to behave and to hear a voice ..."
• "There was no intention - unless there is something subconscious - in trying to depict ..."
• "There's a danger in balkanizing literature, as if it should be read as sociology, or ..."
• "They are not aversive in their actions and, yet they know how to ruffle the ..."
• "They can't change the fact that they made this really stupid mistake, so they are ..."
• "They didn't know who I really was. They didn't know how much the smallest amount ..."
• "They published my little essay and they gave me a transistor radio and, at that ..."
• "They were daughters, also wanting their mother's approval, and didn't understand why their mother was ..."
• "This invisible force that she taught me, this rebellion that I had. And then feeling ..."
• "This is the way it's always going to be. I'm never going to get along ..."
• "This was a moment when I thought for sure my life was over. I think ..."
• "Those are going to be important to the new kind of success. Success being defined ..."
• "To write the book, I had to put that aside. As with any book. I ..."
• "Ultimately, I have to write what I have to write about, including the question of ..."
• "We moved from 41st to 51st to 61st Street and Highland Avenue in Oakland. I ..."
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• "Well suddenly they were shocked to find this mother saying, 'You didn't cook this long ..."
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• "What comes to mind is what I think about with my nieces. They are very, ..."
• "What I fear most is taking the criticism too seriously, the negative criticism or the ..."
• "What you'll find ultimately is that this whole question of who you are is a ..."
• "When I look at external success and internal success, I always have to keep those ..."
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• "When people measure their lives in those terms, the passion is there, the self-guidance is ..."
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• "Words to me were magic. You could say a word and it could conjure up ..."
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• "You can get sucked into the idea that, 'Gosh, this is impressive. Maybe I should ..."
• "You don't say, 'Life's not fair, I worked hard for this. I deserve this.' Finding ..."
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• "You get distracted. You get opportunities. If I look back ten years ago, fifteen years ..."
• "You know, when people say, 'How has success changed you?' you have to say, 'No. ..."
• "You write a book and you hope somebody will go out and pay $24.95 for ..."
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