Amy Tan Want Quotations

My favorite anything is always relative to the context of present time, place and mood. When I finish a book and want to immediately find another by the same author and no other, that author is elevated to my favorite.

Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, then why don't you learn to play chess." - Ch. 5

Can you imagine how it is, to want to be neither inside nor outside, to want to be nowhere and disappear?

But I don't have anything left inside of me to figure out where I fit in or what I want. If I want anything, it's to know what's possible to want.

Isn't that how it is when you must decide with your heart? You are not just choosing one thing over another. You are choosing what you want. And you are also choosing what somebody else does not want, and all the consequences that follow. You can tell yourself, That's not my problem, but those words do not wash the trouble away. Maybe it is no longer a problem in your life. But it is always a problem in your heart.

What is a secret wish?" "It is what you want but cannot ask.

It was a distorted form of inverse logic: If hopes never come true, then hope for what you don't want.