American - Novelist | February 19, 1952 -
My favorite anything is always relative to the context of present time, place and mood. When I finish a book and want to immediately find another by the same author and no other, that author is elevated to my favorite.
Amy Tan
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I don't steer clear of genres. I simply haven't steered myself toward some of them.
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I would never require anyone to read any book. That seems antithetical to why we read - which is to choose a book for our personal reasons. I always shudder when I'm told my books are on required reading lists.
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I write because I know that one day I will die, and thus I should experience as many deliberate observations, careful thoughts, wild ideas, and deep emotions as I can before that day occurs.
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I'd like to be more forgiving. There are times when I've had a hard time forgiving people who have betrayed me.
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I like to go somewhere where I learn something I didn't know before, like the Dry Tortugas between Florida and Cuba.
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My mother left behind three daughters when she went to America and started a new life. I certainly felt abandoned when my father died of a brain tumour; I felt he had abandoned me to this terrible, volatile mother and I had no protection.
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I read academic books on courtesan culture at the turn-of-the century in Shanghai such as Gail Hershatter's 'The Gender of Memory'. The diaries were mostly in the form of letters from courtesans to a lover who had disappeared or taken their savings.
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My mother always thought if her mother hadn't left her, she would have been happy. All the problems she had never would have happened.
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That's part of the character of Shanghainese people. They're good negotiators, they're very persistent, and you grow up in an atmosphere like that - very competitive. That becomes part of your personality: Shanghai personality becomes part of yours. Just like New Yorkers - they're often like that.
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I'm usually woken by a vibration on my up-band. It's the gradual vibration for about ten seconds, and then the chimes of my blue light. It's just a way to wake gently. It all gently puts me into awake-mode. I play music off of my Sonos playlist. 'The Rachmaninoff Concerto 3 in D-minor', 1st movement.
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For books I want to keep reading, it's definitely the voice. It must be a voice I've never heard before, and it must have its own particular intelligence. By 'voice,' I don't mean vernacular. It has to have its own particular history and world that it inhabits.
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