Amy Tan Quotes

Wise people may say what they will, but one passion is never cured by another.

She cried a little, but only inside, because long ago she had decided she didn't like crying because if you ever started to cry it seemed as if there was so much to cry about you almost couldn't stop, and she didn't like that at all.

I don't like to show my emotions at the board, not because they might give something away to an opponent, but because that's my style: I like to keep it to myself.

I'm much softer than people think. I don't present to the world an emotional face. I'm pretty good at self-control, but I am easily moved.

As a young child, I was never a crier. I never cried to get my way, or even when I was in pain.

If I'm uncomfortable, you'd never know.

Even as a boy, my dad always told me, 'Don't show emotion.' If I banged my cue, he would give me a row and say, 'Stop that.' Don't show any petulance. It was developed, certainly, but I think you have got to have it in you.

We are superior to the joy we experience.

You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.

Sipping Bailey's Cream by the stereo, trying to find relief on the radio. I'm suppressing the tears.

Half the sorrows of women would be averted if they could repress the speech they know to be useless-nay, the speech they have resolved not to utter.

Recently, one friend asked me, "How can I force myself to smile when I am filled with sorrow? It isn't natural." I told her she must be able to smile to her sorrow, because we are more than our sorrow. A human being is like a television set with millions of channels. If we turn the Buddha on, we are the Buddha. If we turn sorrow on then we are sorrow. If we turn a smile on, we really are the smile. We can not let just one channel dominate us. We have the seed of everything in us, and we have to seize the situation in our hand, to recover our own sovereignty.

Anger is my biggest enemy in life.

Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved me, so I knew what Augustus was doing. You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but a Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile.

Patience means restraining yourself. There are seven emotions, Joy, anger, anxiety, adoration, grief, fear, and hate. If a man doesn't give way to these, he's patient. I'm not as strong as I might be but I'm patient.

Inside your own self pity there you swim, in sinking down to drown her voice still haunts you, and only with your laughter can you win.

Choosing not to act on an angry impulse and to feel the pain that lies beneath it is a very courageous thing to do.

Jennifer Merrick had stored all her tears inside her, and her pride and courage would never permit her to break down and shed them.

Then I dive into my tent before I do something stupid like cry.

You can either give in to what youre feeling, just say ‘okay, enough is enough’ and be done with it, or you can fight it.

Cinna just smiles. 'Had a damp morning?' 'You could wring me out,' I reply. Cinna puts his arm around my shoulder and leads me into lunch. ' Don't worry, I always channel my emotions into my work. That way I don't hurt anyone but myself.

I'm an emotional person. Sometimes I can't help it.

He disliked emotion, not because he felt lightly, but because he felt deeply.

Having a thick skin doesn't mean that you're hard or harsh. I was lucky because I was born with a thick skin. That doesn't mean that things don't bother me, but you have to keep it in perspective.

I was a master at keeping my feelings in.