Amy Tan Quotes

It's an unknown, it's a disappeared. It has no identity, it's neither alive nor dead...it's disappeared

If you want to disappear, Emily, you can do it most anywhere.

I don't ever feel like anybody knows who I am.

I stand on the end platform of the tram and am completely unsure of my footing in this world, in this town, in my family. Not even casually could I indicate any claims that I might rightly advance in any direction. I have not even any defense to offer for standing on this platform, holding on to this strap, letting myself be carried along by this tram, nor for the people who give way to the tram or walk quietly along or stand gazing into shop windows. Nobody asks me to put up a defense, indeed, but that is irrelevant.

It's an abnormal world I live in. I don't belong anywhere. It's like I'm floating down the middle. I'm never quite sure where I am.

As he thought of it, though, he could not imagine what “just living” might actually be. He had never done it in his life. But he wanted to do it anyway.

I don't know, man, I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian.

I saw all the mirrors on earth and none of them reflected me.

I stand here waiting. To disappear or sing.

I haven't found one place in the world yet where I could disappear.

Sometimes one simply wants to disappear.

..there is nothing worse than the feeling that no one cares whether we exist or not, that no one is interested in what we have to say about life, and that the world can continue turning without our awkward presence. I began to imagine how many millions of people were, at that moment, feeling utterly useless and wretched—however rich, charming, and delightful they might be—because they were alone that night, as they were yesterday, and as they might well be tomorrow.

He was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable.

Every body drags its shadow, and every mind its doubt.

But knowing what I don’t want to do doesn’t help me figure out what I do want to do. I could do just about anything if somebody made me. But I don’t have an image of the one thing I really want to do. That’s my problem now. I can’t find the image.

It doesn't interest me if there is one God or many gods. I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned. If you know despair or can see it in others.

I walk around the world like a ghost, and sometimes I question whether I even exist. Whether I've ever existed at all.

I'm not sure this is a world I belong in anymore. I'm not sure that I want to wake up.

For the first time in our lives, I’m somewhere she can’t find, and I don’t have the map to give her that leads to me.

I don't matter here, Shane. I feel like I just don't matter. Stupid, right?" "No," he said. He sounded so gentle it broke her heart. "It's how most people feel most of the time, Claire. You've grown up being special, and this is how most people live their lives...on their own, unnoticed. And they get used to that feeling. It's just new for you.

I have hardly anything in common with myself and should stand very quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe.

You can sit up here, feeling above it all while knowing you’re not, coming to the lonely conclusion that the only thing you can ever really know about anyone is that you don’t know anything about them at all.

The city had defeated her, just like they said it would. Like some overcrowded party, no one had noticed her arrival, and would notice if she left.

I’m living in separate universes, and I have no idea where I actually belong.

He felt as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in a monstrous world where he himself was the monster. He was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable