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Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain.

— Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club (1989)

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Pain

More quotes by Amy Tan

"You see what power is — holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them! Besides, maybe it is true. Maybe Peanut and Little Yu's mother are now big Communists, who knows?"

The Kitchen God's Wife (1991)

For woman is yin, the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds.

The Joy Luck Club (1989)

Whenever I'm with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines.

The Kitchen God's Wife (1991)

I began to look at all events and all things as relevant, an opportunity to take or avoid.

The Joy Luck Club (1989)

Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses.

All Amy Tan quotes →

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A man who only becomes a husband brings pain to his parents, and a person who only becomes a son brings pain to his wife.

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A portion of life, every moment gets torn out of me hurting, and flees away.

Suman Pokhrel

Knowledge by suffering entereth,
And life is perfected by death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning Poems (1844)

If everyone could feel everyone else’s pain, who would torture?

Octavia Butler Parable of the Sower (1993)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Amy Tan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.