Amy Tan

“It's both rebellion and conformity that attack you with success.”

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

“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.”

“Until the age of five, my parents spoke to me in Chinese or a combination of Chinese and English, but they didn't force me to speak Mandarin. In retrospect, this was sad, because they believed that my chance of doing well in America hinged on my fluency in English. Later, as an adult, I wanted to le...”

“Chinese artists have been subversive over thousands of years, taking what they think of the government and embedding it in their art. There might be censorship of not going as far as they might.”

“The forbidden things were a great influence on my life. I was forbidden from reading A Catcher in the Rye.”