Amy Tan Quotes

When I started writing fiction, I knew how good it was immediately.

I enjoy it too much - even if I knew I'd never get a book published, I would still write. I enjoy the experience of getting thoughts and ideas and plots and characters organised into this narrative framework.

You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.

I just write the books that I think I would want to read.

I'm not sure if I always wanted to be a writer, but I was always writing.

The first book you write because of the way it makes you feel. The second one you can't help but wonder how it's going to make the reader feel.

I guess you could say I've been writing all my life.

I want to write more, because I think I've got a story to tell.

I love to write. It's my first love.

It is my desire to be a great writer. I know that I still have a mountain to climb to achieve that.

Don't romanticise your 'vocation.' You can either write good sentences or you can't. There is no 'writer's lifestyle.' All that matters is what you leave on the page.

If you give me a typewriter and I'm having a good day, I can write a scene that will astonish its readers. That will perhaps make them laugh, perhaps make them cry - that will have some emotional clout to it. It doesn't cost much to do that.

You write, hoping to write a good book; that's it.

I've been writing, in one way or another, for as long as I can remember.

A lot of people ask me, 'Are you born a writer?' And I don't think it's necessarily true. I just think what you either have or you don't is this ability to see something that's complex and worth talking about.

If you want to be a good writer, be the best writer in the world. That's what I've done.

My novels come from within me; they are things I feel I want to do.

Every story I write is different. Some are hard. Some aren't. 'Chronicle' was tremendously easy. I have a hard time comparing my process on different things, but I will say this: The more you write, the better you get at it. That's one of the few things that's markedly true.

I feel like writing a book there's always a version in your head that's an amazing version, but then you write the version that you can write.

I'm very happy with the way I write. I think I do it good. But I've never really considered myself a writer.

I knew I was a writer; I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't know what to write.

Doing interesting things and then writing about them is the best way to become a good writer.

I liked to write from the time I was about 12 or 13. I loved to read. And since I only spoke to my brother, I would write down my thoughts. And I think I wrote some of the worst poetry west of the Rockies. But by the time I was in my 20s, I found myself writing little essays and more poetry - writing at writing.

All experience helps when you write.

I'm a writer, and the subject is less important than the act of writing itself.