Amy Tan Quotes

And I think now that fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention. But somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over. -Rose

Man never legislates, but destinies and accidents, happening in all sorts of ways, legislate in all sorts of ways.

The challenge of our times is to leave nothing to chance.

Good fortune is as light as a feather, but nobody knows how to pick it up. Misfortune is as heavy as earth, but nobody knows how to stay out of it's way.

The spider dances her web without knowing there are flies that will get caught in it. The fly, dancing nonchalantly on a sunbeam gets caught without knowing what lies in store. But through both of them "It" dances. So, too, the archer hits the target without having aimed-more I cannot say.

How true it is that our destinies are decided by nothings and that a small imprudence helped by some insignificant accident, as an acorn is fertilized by a drop of rain, may raise the trees on which perhaps we and others shall be crucified.

Anything is hard to find when you will not open your eyes

I'm ready for anything. That's probably why it never happens.

It is a common observation that those who dwell continually upon their expectations are apt to become oblivious to the requirements of their actual situation.

After all, our lives are but a sequence of accidents - a clanking chain of chance events. A string of choices, casual or deliberate, which add up to that one big calamity we call life.

The bones of the Dead will be seen to govern the fortunes of him who moves them.

Fate is the friend of the good, the guide of the wise, the tyrant of the foolish, the enemy of the bad.

If you choose to be looking for something, you'd better be ready for whatever it is you are find. Because it may not be what you've been expecting.

What man would dare believe that all he planned might come to pass?

My whole life has been pledged to this meeting with you.

Good fortune has side effects.

As we are, so we do; and as we do, so is it done to us; we are the builders of our fortunes.

What people commonly call Fate is, as a general rule, nothing but their own stupid and foolish conduct.

Ross was a firm believer that you could not force circumstance. You could buckle your seat belt, but still crash the car. You could throw yourself in front of an oncoming train, but somehow survive. You could wait for years to find a ghost, and then have one sneak up on you when you were too busy falling in love with a woman to pay attention. To that end, he made the conscious decision to stop waiting for Lia. When he least expected her, that was when she would show up.

Our wills and fates do so contrary run, That our devices still are overthrown; Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.

He who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation, or has any other effect than that of producing a moral sentence or peevish exclamation.

You never know how things are going to turn out, however much you plan. But you already know that.

Somewhere along the line, the pearl would be handed to me.

You can't make good scores happen. You've got to let it happen.