Amy Tan

"Words to me were magic. You could say a word and it could conjure up all kinds of images or feelings or a chilly sensation or whatever. It was amazing to me that words had this power."

"I didn't fear failure. I expected failure."

"I think I've always been somebody, since the deaths of my father and brother, who was afraid to hope. So, I was more prepared for failure and for rejection than for success."

"I didn't fear failure. I expected failure."

"I was intelligent enough to make up my own mind. I not only had freedom of choice, I had freedom of expression."

"I would find myself laughing and wondering where these ideas came from. You can call it imagination, I suppose. But I was grateful for wherever they came from."