Among writers, if you don't have a therapist, it's like saying you don't keep a journal or use the thesaurus. It's a natural accompaniment.
Amy TanRead
And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the significance of familial ties and heritage in shaping one's identity.
In this quote, Amy Tan reflects on her connection to her Chinese heritage, which she associates deeply with her family. This highlights how family influences our identity and sense of self, suggesting that our roots and lineage play a vital role in defining who we are.
In practice
In a speech about cultural identity during a family reunion.
Among writers, if you don't have a therapist, it's like saying you don't keep a journal or use the thesaurus. It's a natural accompaniment.
Her education only made her unhappy thinking about it - that no matter how much she changed her life, she could not change the world that surrounded her.
You can't have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for the consequences? Saving fish from drowning. Same thing. Whoβs saved? Whoβs not?
I am fascinated by language in daily life: the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth.
Even if I had expected it, even if I had known what I was going to do with my life, it would have knocked the wind out of me. When something that violent hits you, you can't help but lose your balance and fall. And after you pick yourself up, you realize you can't trust anybody to save you- not your husband, not your mother, not God. So what can you do to stop yourself from tilting and falling all over again?
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?
I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection.
The art of motherhood involves much silent, unobtrusive self-denial, an hourly devotion which finds no detail too minute.
I am most anxious to give my own children enough love and understanding so that they won't grow up with an aching void in them--like you and I and Harold and Martha. That can never be filled, and one goes around all one's life trying, trying to make up for what one didn't get that was one's birthright, asking the wrong people for it.
Mothers really were not built to raise babies not only by themselves, but with only a partner. For millions of years, a woman had much more than just her husband to help rear her young... This whole idea of 'it takes a village to raise a child' is exactly how we're supposed to live.
My grandson Sam Saunders has been playing golf since he could hold a club and I spent a lot of time with him over the years. Like my father taught me, I showed him the fundamentals of the game and helped him make adjustments as he and his game matured over the years.
I profoundly believe that the power of food has a primal place in our homes that binds us to the best bits of life.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.