Whenever my mother talks to me, she begins the conversation as if we were already in the middle of an argument.
Amy TanHer education only made her unhappy thinking about it - that no matter how much she changed her life, she could not change the world that surrounded her.
Amy TanShe would be quiet at first. Then she would say a word about something small, something she had noticed, and then another word, and another, each one flung out like a little piece of sand, one from this direction, another form behind, more and more, until his looks, his character, his soul would have eroded away . . . I was afraid that some unseen speck of truth would fly into my eye, blur what I was seeing and transform him from the divine man I thought he was into someone quite mundane, mortally wounded with tiresome habits and irritating imperfections.
Amy Tan