Amy Tan Quotes

It's so much easier to know who you are when there aren't a thousand people telling you who they think you are.

There is no old Adam Young, there is no new Adam Young, merely different colors and different brushstrokes over the same canvas.

Many people dedicate their lives to actualizing a concept of what they should be like, rather than actualizing themselves. This difference between self-actualization and self-image actualization is very important. Most people live only for their image

I think that it doesn't matter if I travel all over the place. I'll always be a normal teenager on the inside. It always depends on how you act yourself, not what happens to you. That's my view of it all.

Above all, know that ego isn't personal. It isn't who you are. If you consider the ego to be your personal problem, that's just more ego.

I’m not my name. My name is something I wear, like a shirt. It gets worn. I outgrow it, I change it.

When people say you're going to be so different at 22 or 23, when you're 16, you're like, I'm so not! And then you change drastically.

Who would you be without your story?

I've learned over the years that identity has a whole lot less to do with location or other people's expectations than with your own sense of self and self-confidence.

As Mark Weiner puts it, whether you gain 50 pounds or lose 50 pounds, whether you have a sex change operation for that matter, that it doesn't matter, that there is some part of ourselves that we cannot escape.

You grow and you change, or at least you think you do, but you're kind of the same.

You can't get away from who you are I guess.

I don't have dreams. How can I say it? I myself am a dream.

We are sometimes as different from ourselves as we are from others.

I'm not going to become a costume version or caricature of myself; I like to morph.

I'm still me even after all that's happened.

I don't believe complete assimilation is possible, at least not for anyone who has an active, open mind. Every step, every entry into the flows of existence can be seen as a beginning, a commencement of a brand new way of seeing oneself in the world. This is the case for everyone.

Without education, you’re not you and I’m not me.

We all wait for a mirror to show us who we are, to validate us. When we hear something about ourselves that we have never heard before, it feels like a blessing, and it gives power.

I think I look more like me than my father's daughter now.

People who want to remember me as Cat Stevens - welcome. Those who want me as Yusuf, you're here.

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being.

You're not a combination of all your labels. You just are.

I think, personally, it's our flaws that define us to us - or maybe it's just me.

My self encompasses a lot of different things.