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e4da726
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I taught her how American circumstances work. If you are born poor here, it's no lasting shame. You are first in line for a scholarship. If the roof crashes on your head, no need to cry over this bad luck. You can sue anybody, make the landlord fix it. You do not have to sit like a Buddha under a tree letting pigeons drop their dirty business on your head. You can buy an umbrella. Or go inside a Catholic church. In America, nobody says you ..
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Amy Tan |
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fd732b1
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Being able to restrain my emotions isn't a great victory--it's the pitiful proof of lost love.
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Amy Tan |
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c0410d9
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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.
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Amy Tan |
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c43473e
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Yet part of me also thinks the whole idea makes perfect sense. The three of us, leaving our differences behind, stepping on the plane together, sitting side by side, lifting off, moving West to reach the East.
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Amy Tan |
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fd8c40f
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That is the problem with modern ink from a bottle. You do not have to think. You simply write what is swimming on the top of your brain. And the top is nothing but pond scum, dead leaves, and mosquito spawn. But when you push an inkstick along an inkstone, you take the first step to cleansing your mind and your heart. You push and you ask yourself, What are my intentions? What is in my heart that matches my mind? I
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Amy Tan |
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36a39ac
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My mother believed in God's will for many years. It was af if she had turned on a celestial faucet and goodness kept pouring out. She said it was faith that kept all these good things coming our way, only I thought she said "fate" because she couldn't pronounce the "th" sound in "faith". And later I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you're in control. I found out the most could have..
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fate
god
luck
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Amy Tan |
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6658585
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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 give her my spirit, because this is the way a mother loves her daughter.
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Amy Tan |
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97e3232
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And for all those years, we never talked about the disaster at the recital or my terrible accusations afterward at the piano bench. All that remained unchecked, like a betrayal that was now unbreakable. So I never found a way to ask her why she had hoped something so large that failure was inevitable. And even worse, I never asked her what frightened me the most: Why had she given up hope?
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success
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Amy Tan |
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d057d72
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A few times I invited Ba to visit me from the World of Yin. But other yin friends tell me he is stuck somewhere else, a foggy place where people believe their lies are true.
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Amy Tan |
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6e98845
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Suffer more now, suffer less later.
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Amy Tan |
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c752a1a
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All night long I worried, not about myself but about Jimmy. I imagined him looking for me, running through the park, looking in the movie theatres. He was a good man, considerate and kind, but he was not strong. He had never been through any kind of bad hardship before. So I worried.
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Amy Tan |
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938347f
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To keep false hopes is to prolong misery.
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Amy Tan |
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d7e9dd1
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The life we receive is not always what we choose.
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Amy Tan |
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a8d286c
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But you can't stay in the dark for so long. Something inside of you starts to fade and you become like a starving person, crazy-hungry for light.
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Amy Tan |
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bc919eb
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As proof of her faith, my mother used to carry a samll leatherette Bible when she went to the First Chinese Baptist Church every Sunday. But later, after my mother lost her faith in God, that leatherette Bible would up wedged under a too-short table leg, a way for her to correct the imbalances of life. It's been there for over twenty years. My mother pretends that Bible isn't there. Whenever anyone asks her what it's doing there, she says,..
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Amy Tan |
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02c2a88
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And when I say that is certainly true, that our marriage is over. I know what else she will say: "Then you must save it." And even though I know it's hopeless- there's absolutely nothing left to save-I'm afraid if I tell her that, she'll still persuade me to try."
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Amy Tan |
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53fab78
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I thought about things, the pros and cons. But in the end I would be so confused, because I never believed there was ever any one right answer, yet there were many wrong ones.
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Amy Tan |
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629b0a4
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I imagine a hundred Chinese Icaruses, molding wings out of earwax. You can't stop people from wishing.
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Amy Tan |
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920f87b
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My sister Kwan believes she has yin eyes.
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Amy Tan |
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27bf404
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I was the daughter of my father's wife. I spoke in a trembly voice. I became pale, ill, and more thin. I let myself become a wounded animal. I let the hunter come to me and turn me into a tiger ghost. I willingly gave up my , the spirit that caused me so much pain. Now I was a tiger that neither pounced nor lay waiting between the trees. I became an unseen spirit.
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Amy Tan |
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1e3317a
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I, not anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel if by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere--on water and land.
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Amy Tan |
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3cb5bfb
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Fate changes when you change your clothes.
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Amy Tan |
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f9d641b
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Do you know what morals are Violet? They're other people's rules. Do you know what a conscience is? Freedom to use your own intelligence to determine what is right or wrong. You possess that freedom and no one can remove it from you
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Amy Tan |
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ded7b24
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The only thing certain in times of great uncertainty is that people will behave with great strength or weakness, and with very little else in between.
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Amy Tan |
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4cc270f
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Even though I did not understand her entire story, I understood her grief.
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Amy Tan |
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bc1e394
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Free time was the most precious time, when you should be doing what you loved, or at least slowing down enough to remember what made your life worthwhile and happy.
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happy
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Amy Tan |
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526df8d
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At first, I thought it was because I was raised with all this Chinese humility... Or maybe it was because when you're Chinese you're supposed to accept everything, flow with the Tao and not make waves. But my therapist said, Why do you blamd your culture, your ethnicity? And I remembered reading an article about baby boomers, how we expect the best and when we get it we worry that maybe we shoudl have expected more, because it's all diminis..
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Amy Tan |
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741d381
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I tried to keep very still, but my heart felt like crickets scratching to get out of the cage.
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Amy Tan |
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2f9258b
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A good government had to guide its people, sometimes gently, sometimes strictly, just as parents did. It could allow certain freedoms, but in a style that suited the country.
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Amy Tan |
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10be336
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Teddy once told me that it's natural that we feel alone, and that's because our hearts are different from others and we don't even know how. When we're in love, as if by magic, our different hearts come together perfectly toward the same desire. Eventually, the differences return, and then comes heartache and mending, and, in between, much loneliness and fear. If love remains despite the pain of those differences, it must be guarded as rare..
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Amy Tan |
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b0e9ba6
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A little knowledge withheld is a great advantage one should store for future use.
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Amy Tan |
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a0a3667
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I owed her a debt of gratitude. More than gratitude, much more. I could finally see what had always been there. She had been more than an attendant, more than a friend, more than a sister. She had been a mother to me. She had worried, sought to protect me from danger, guided me toward the best. She had looked out for my future, assessed the worthiness of everyone to be in my life. And in that way, she had taken me as her purpose in life, th..
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Amy Tan |
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7d56a1d
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I worried that Harold would someday get a new prescription for his glasses and he'd put them on one morning, look me up and down, and say, "Why, gosh, you aren't the girl I thought you were, are you?"
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Amy Tan |
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baa22ed
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I let one thing result from another. Of course, all of it could have been just loosely connected coincidences. And whether that's true or not, I know the intention was there. Becasue when I want something to happen-or not happen- I begin to look at all events and all things as relevant, an opportunity to take or avoid.
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Amy Tan |
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75dcfdb
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What use for? asks my mother, jiggling the table with her hand. You put something else on top, everything fall down.
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Amy Tan |
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9a34734
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But he was so attuned to my every movement I was sure he was reading my mind. HE had no inhibitions, and whatever ones he discovered I had he'd pry away from me like little treasures.
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Amy Tan |
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ba3349a
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Can you imagine how it is, to want to be neither inside nor outside, to want to be nowhere and disappear?
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Amy Tan |
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f24a38e
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Our love would be solace, companionship, and the mending of wounds.
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love
inspirational
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Amy Tan |
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34baca3
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If you don't take a chance, someone else will give you his luck. And if you get bad luck, then you need to take another chance to turn things from bad to good.
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Amy Tan |
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d3c1454
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How can you blame a person for his fears and weaknesses unless you have felt the same and done differently? How can you think everyone can be a hero, choosing death, when it is part of our nature to let go of brave thoughts at the last moment and cling to hope and life?
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Amy Tan |
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0c8b7af
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Accept love when it is offered, Violet. Return love and not suspicion. Then you'll receive more. - Loyalty Tang
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Amy Tan |
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ee9ace2
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The best life you can have as you get into old age is good food, good teeth to eat it with, and few worries when you go to bed at night.
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life
old-age
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Amy Tan |
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8859973
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I hid my deepest feelings so well I forgot where I had placed them.
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Amy Tan |
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09665e5
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All of us are like stairs, one step after another, going up and down, but all going the same way.
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Amy Tan |