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
Only two kinds of daughters, she shouted in Chinese. Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!
Interpretation
The quote highlights the dichotomy of familial expectations versus personal autonomy in daughters.
Amy Tan's quote reflects the struggle between traditional expectations and personal freedom faced by daughters. It emphasizes the tension that exists within relationships, especially in cultures that may value obedience over individuality, thereby provoking thought on the balance between being dutiful and authentic to oneself.
In practice
In a speech addressing cultural values during a family event.
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?
Daughter am I in my mother's house, but mistress in my own.
Anger repressed can poison a relationship as surely as the crudest words.
Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.
You can give words, but you can't take them. And when words are given, that is when they are shared. We remember what that was like. Words so real they were almost tangible. There are conversations you remember, for certain. But more than that, there is the sensation of conversation. You will remember that, even when the precise words begin to blur.
It is no use trying to sum people up. One must follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entirely what is done.
A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.
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