Tan Quotes & Sayings

I'm personally opposed to a deep tan because I like to feel blond all over. — Marilyn Monroe

With his blond hair, broad shoulders, and perpetual tan,
Bryce looked like a California underwear model. Not that I'd thought about him in his underwear.
Much. — Chris Cannon

At first, I thought it was because I was raised with all this Chinese humility ... Or maybe it was because when you're Chinese you're supposed to accept everything, flow with the Tao and not make waves. But my therapist said, Why do you blamd your culture, your ethnicity? And I remembered reading an article about baby boomers, how we expect the best and when we get it we worry that maybe we shoudl have expected more, because it's all diminishing returns after a certain age. — Amy Tan

After all, Bao Bomu says, what is the past but what we choose to remember? — Amy Tan

I often reread passages of "Lolita" for its exquisite language. To me, "Lolita" has no message, no purpose, other than to exist as a marvel of literary creation. It has wit, intelligence and style. It pointedly makes no attempt to serve a higher moral purpose, and previous attempts by critics to find one have proven ludicrous. The annotated edition is accompanied by a brilliant afterword by Nabokov that is a lucid reminder of the pure joy of writing, its interplay with life. — Amy Tan

Hardships can harden even the best person. — Amy Tan

The old woman remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum. This bird, boasted the market vendor, was once a duck that stretched its neck in hopes of becoming a goose, and now look!
it is too beautiful to eat. — Amy Tan

I have become a collapsing star, pulling everything around it, even the light, into an ever-expanding void. — Tan Twan Eng

Tally yanked her hand away and stuck it behind her back. "God. I am so sorry." She'd touched him. Felt the heat of his tanned skin, felt the crisp hairs at his groin ... felt ... oh, man.
"Nice try, but no cigar. Want to go for two out of three?"
Tally closed her eyes and blew out a breath. "Oh, this day just gets better and better."
"It's certainly looking up for me." With an amused glance, the pirate hitched his shorts back over the sharp angle of his hipbones. There'd been so sign of a tan line. — Cherry Adair

If you can't change your fate, change your attitude. — Amy Tan

Any man who can look handsome in a dirty baseball suit is an Adonis. There is something about the baggy pants, and the Micawber-shaped collar, and the skull-fitting cap, and the foot or so of tan, or blue, or pink undershirt sleeve sticking out at the arms, that just naturally kills a man's best points. — Edna Ferber

I did not lose myself all at once. — Amy Tan

They built these little tanning booths for Brooke and I to do nothing but lay down and tan all over. — Christopher Atkins

And now I have to stop. Because every time I remember this, I have to cry a little by myself. I don't know why something that made me so happy then feels so sad now. Maybe that is the way it is with the best memories. — Amy Tan

After a while, I hurt so much I didn't feel any difference. — Amy Tan

I would never require anyone to read any book. That seems antithetical to why we read - which is to choose a book for our personal reasons. I always shudder when I'm told my books are on required reading lists. — Amy Tan

You must think for yourself, what you must do. If someone tells you, then you are not trying.
-An-mei — Amy Tan

We were like two moths around a candle, I thought, circling closer and closer to the flame, waiting to see whose wings would catch fire first. — Tan Twan Eng

Sometimes I've sat outside, not to tan, but as a result of that I ended up tanning slightly. — Julian Casablancas

Barrons Books and Baubles had been ransacked!

Tables were overturned, books torn from shelves and strewn everywhere, baubles broken. Even my little TV behind the counter had been destroyed.

"Barrons?" I called warily. It was night and the lights were on. My illusory Alina had told me more than an hour had passed. Was it the same night, nearly dawn? Or was it the night following our theft attempt? Had Barrons come back from Wales yet? Or was he still there, searching for me? When I'd been so rudely ripped from reality, who or what had come through those basement doors?

I heard footsteps, boots on hardwood, and turned expectantly toward the connecting doors.

Barrons was framed in the doorway. His eyes were black ice. He stared at me a moment, raking me from head to toe. "Nice tan, Ms. Lane. So, where the fuck have you been for the past month? — Karen Marie Moning

Most modern Indians don't stick to their caste jobs any more. There is more inter-caste marriage, more fluidity, more freedom than ever before. But the outcastes are usually still outcastes, because they are still the ones who tan India's animals, burn its dead, and remove its excrement. — Rose George

An ally in time of need is worth more than gold.
(Lady Rose quoting Scholar Tan) — Michael Pryor

Are all of us the same, I wonder, navigating our lives by interpreting the silences between words spoken, analysing the returning echoes of our memory in order to chart the terrain, in order to make sense of the world around us? — Tan Twan Eng

People say the beach is the great equaliser
Who are they kidding?
Sit at Bondi and watch the boys flex
And the girls walk bolt upright
It looks like a nightmare episode of Baywatch.
The true equaliser is the mountain cold
And stacks of cold flung together
Maybe then we'd listen to what each other is saying
Instead of checking out the best bods.
And as I wrap another layer
Around my Size 10
I think of Jack's favourite saying:
"today's tan is tomorrow's cancer"
I walk outside
And whistle at the wind. — Steven Herrick

The man in the tan jacket?' Josie's voice took on a new tone, one filled with interest and perhaps panic. Erika was back. Both of the Erikas. They sat on either side of Josie on the couch. Their faces were similar to the ones that a human uses to express fear. No, not fear. Concern. They looked concerned. — Joseph Fink

Really, Roen Tan? Do you actually think pizza makes you hear voices? — Wesley Chu

I also found out why I should never reveal the "why" to others. A little knowledge withheld is a great advantage one should store for future use. That is the power of chess. It is a game of secrets in which one must show and never tell. — Amy Tan

When we do 'Sports Illustrated,' it starts the night before. You do a St. Tropez tan that night, then baby oil gel, then body color. — Chrissy Teigen

The tree of life is already doomed from the moment it is planted. — Tan Twan Eng

He tells my parents how I took every class he taught. He tells them, "You have a special boy here." Embarrassed, I look at my feet. Before we leave, I hand my professor a present, a tan briefcase with his initials on the front. I bought this the day before at a shopping mall. I didn't want to forget him. Maybe I didn't want him to forget me.
"Mitch, you are one of the good ones," he says, admiring the briefcase. Then he hugs me. I feel his thin arms around my back. I am taller than he is, and when he holds me, I feel awkward, older, as if I were the parent and he were the child.
He asks if I will stay in touch, and without hesitation I say, "Of course." When he steps back, I see that he is crying. — Mitch Albom

A few times I invited Ba to visit me from the World of Yin. But other yin friends tell me he is stuck somewhere else, a foggy place where people believe their lies are true. — Amy Tan

Fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention. — Amy Tan

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. — Amy Tan

I was always very different from the other kids. I have an I.Q. of 156. I didn't play sports. I thought big. I thought I could achieve great things. I don't want to sound megalomaniac, but my whole life is about doing something for the world, from as far back as I can remember. — Chade-Meng Tan

The University of Miami is not a campus with visible school spirit, just visible tan lines. — Lisa Birnbach

If you had to pick between being moral and successful, obviously I'd choose to be moral. However if you can choose both, will you choose both? I'd say definitely. — Chade-Meng Tan

A striking man stood in the doorway behind him: perhaps sixty-five, with a great shock of white hair. The hair was the only thing that looked at all old about him; he was close to six and a half feet tall, with a craggy, handsome face bronzed by the sun, a trim, athletic bearing, wearing a blue blazer over a crisp white cotton shirt and tan slacks. He radiated good health and vigorous living. His hands were massive. — Douglas Preston

What was worse, we asked among ourselves, to sit and wait for our own deaths with proper somber faces? Or to choose our own happiness? — Amy Tan

In the years that followed, I failed her so many times, each time asserting my own will, my right to fall short of expectations. — Amy Tan

Chinese artists have been subversive over thousands of years, taking what they think of the government and embedding it in their art. There might be censorship of not going as far as they might. — Amy Tan

On my mother's side, I'm English, so that's where the freckles come from. On my father's side, I'm German, and he has the fantastic olive hues ... I was given mum's skin, whereas my brothers and sisters were given my dad's skin. I do tan up quite well, but it takes me a bit longer. — Dan Feuerriegel

We all hate moral ambiguity in some sense, and yet it is also absolutely necessary. In writing a story, it is the place where I begin. — Amy Tan

Ying-ying, you have tiger eyes. They gather fire in the day. At night they shine golden. — Amy Tan

While it is good to speak well, it is better to speak the truth. — Amy Tan

Where did he go when he left us? I spied the new journal he had started using just last week and held it against my chest. This was who he was. But it also was not. It was sad and beautiful knowledge that a person cannot be found elsewhere but in his own spirit. No one could possess it. — Amy Tan

That was a wonderful period in my life. I mean, I didn't become an artist, but somebody let me do something I loved. What a luxury, to do something you love to do. — Amy Tan

Chaos is the penance for leisure. — Amy Tan

She wasn't sure if she even needed him anymore and the thought made her sad. In consolation, she offered him a kind smile and reached for his dependable hand. — Tan Redding

She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image. They were startling gray,like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.
She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hand, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, You killed a Minotaur! or Wow you're so awesome! or something like that.
Instead she said, "you drool when you sleep."
Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her. — Rick Riordan

In America nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you. — Amy Tan

Our demons are friends, — Tan Redding

Keep your life simple and stylish and earnest. Do good and donate your time and money to something you care about. Make people laugh. Be frank. Always give people a second chance - but rarely a third. Live light, travel light, and be light. Forget shit and move on. Make everyone you love feel loved. Waste not, want not. Reuse stuff. Stop trying to get a tan and straighten your hair - you're just not made that way. Go to the movies, go to the library, go to the park. Try to make every day feel as close to a vacation as possible. Floss. — Judy Greer

Like you, the dead enjoy watching conflict. Schadenfreude thrills them, as do music and spectacle and loss. With the right mix, you can get a whole lot of them to watch you all the time. Faye — Charles Tan

But sometimes the prodigy in me became impatient. "If you don't hurry up and get me out of here, I'm disappearing for good," it warned. "And they you'll always be nothing. — Amy Tan

I stay out of the sun; I'm pretty fair. I don't tan - I burn, so I stay out. — Brittany Snow

I started life in a poor family and could not even afford a proper tertiary education. — Vincent 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. — Amy Tan

Phi cang Saigon Tansonnhut"

"He puzzled at the meaning and smiled inwardly. The sign probably said, "Welcome and Affectionate Salutations to All Who Enter the Glorious Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Home of Seventh Air Force, Only Minutes from Beautiful Saigon." Or maybe not; he couldn't know. Maybe it read, "Welcome to the Dung Heap of Despair - Abandon Cheer, All Ye Who Enter. — Tony Taylor

I take a few quick sips. "This is really good." And I mean it. I have never tasted tea like this. It is smooth, pungent, and instantly addicting.
"This is from Grand Auntie," my mother explains. "She told me 'If I buy the cheap tea, then I am saying that my whole life has not been worth something better.' A few years ago she bought it for herself. One hundred dollars a pound."
"You're kidding." I take another sip. It tastes even better. — Amy Tan

Precious Auntie, what is our name? I always meant to claim it as my own. Come help me remember. I'm not a little girl anymore. I'm not afraid of ghosts. Are you still mad at me? Don't you recognize me? I am LuLing, your daughter. — Amy Tan

After living in Smokey Hollow these three months my bearded face was darkened to a tan, and for more than a moment, I couldn't tell what color I was. Black is what I saw and what I expected to see. I grabbed a towel and rubbed to get a clear look. No, I was white. At least my skin was. I had been through so much with my family here, and all I had seen was black faces, that I forgot for a split second that I wasn't black too. For weeks after the flood in the bathroom, I remembered the morning I forgot my skin color. — Peter Jenkins

Jonathan Green had a firm handshake, clear eyes, and a jawline not dissimilar to Dudley Do-Right's. He was in his early sixties, with graying hair, a beach-club tan, and a voice that was rich and comforting. A minister's voice. He wasn't a handsome man, but there was a sincerity in his eyes that put you at ease. Jonathan Green was reputed to be one of the top five criminal defense attorneys in America, with a success rate in high-profile criminal defense cases of one hundred percent. Like Elliot Truly, Jonathan Green was wearing an impeccably tailored blue Armani suit. So were the lesser attorneys. Maybe they got a bulk discount. I was wearing impeccably tailored black Gap jeans, a linen aloha shirt, and white Reebok sneakers. Green said, Did Elliot explain why we wanted to see you? — Robert Crais

He had a particular facination with the I Ching, that art of tossing three coins three times and divining a pattern out of heads and tails. Pete would begin with questions:
What determined the pattern? Was it random? Was it a higher power? Was is mathematical? Wasn't poker based on mathematical probability and not just luck? Did that mean randomness was actually mathematical? And if the I Ching was governed by mathematics, hey, wouldn't that mean the I Ching was actually predictable, a prescribed answer? And if it was prescribed, did that mean that your life followed the I Ching, like some sort of equation? Or did the I Ching simply capture correctly what had already been determined as the next series of events in your life? — Amy Tan

Interestingly, the word 'person' did not originally refer to the individual in the way we tend to use it today. Instead, 'person' came, via french, from the Latin word 'persona', which referred to the mask worn by tan actor to protray a particular character. In this theatrical sense, personality has to do with the role or character that the person plays in life's drama. The person's individuality, in this sense, is a matter of the roles or characters that he or she assumes. — Nick Haslam

Hot pink, I'm sure she spent a few minutes debating it - was she tan enough, maybe the navy silky sleeveless top instead, can't go wrong with navy - and over her shoulder, a cognac Prada the exact same shade as her shoes, the perfect match more age revealing than the skin starting to pucker in her neck. She had at least ten years on me, I determined, relieved. — Jessica Knoll

I think books were my salvation, they saved me from being miserable. — Amy Tan

You're a hero one day, you're a villain another day. They say that's football. When a manager does well, they're applauded, when they don't do well, they get the sack. Football is a tough world. Those who watch enjoy it - for everybody else, there are a lot of challenges. — Vincent Tan

Being a dominatrix gave me the ultimate power: to sing without self-consciousness. — Amy Tan

I can tan quickly. What takes people hours to do, I can tan in half an hour. — George Hamilton

With hope, a mind is always free. — Amy Tan

And below the heimongmong, all along the ground, were weeds already spilling out over the edges, running wild in every direction. — Amy Tan

But later that day, the streets of Kweilin were strewn with newspapers reporting great Kuomintang victories, and on top of these papers, like fresh fish from a butcher, lay rows of people - men, women and children who had never lost hope, but had lost their lives instead. — Amy Tan

what matters the most is a mix of strategy, cunning, honesty, patience, and the readiness to grab every opportunity. Above all, a girl must always be willing to do what is necessary. ACCIDENTS — Amy Tan

What use for? asks my mother, jiggling the table with her hand. You put something else on top, everything fall down. — Amy Tan

I think Kwan intended to show me the world is not a place but the vastness of the sou. And the soul is nothing more than love, limitless, endless, all that moves us toward knowing what is true ... If people we love die, then they are lost only to our ordinary senses. If we remember, we can find them anytime with our hundred secret senses. — Amy Tan

I had thus learned to push down my feelings, to force myself to not care, to do nothing and let things happen, come what may. — Amy Tan

If I stopped running and stood still, I would be accepting that what I had was all I would ever have. And then I would no longer be lost, because there would nowhere else to go — Amy Tan

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

I see racism as a cancer. It is a cancer growing in us. Unless we stop it, it vegetates and grows bigger which hurts every one of us. — Pearl Tan

Dementia. Ruth puzzled over the diagnosis: How could such a beautiful-sounding word apply to such a destructive disease? It was a name befitting a goddess: Dementia, who caused her sister Demeter to forget to turn winter into spring. — Amy Tan

Nobody sounds like that! Mom, Aunt Nan, it won't work. No way is he ever, ever, ever going to blend in. And his ... you know ... his shoulders are all wide and he's all tan and looks Superman strong ... and ... "
"Anything else? Should I turn around? — Anne Eliot

When Jesus was born, he was already the son of God. I was the daughter of someone who ran away, a big disgrace. And when Jesus suffered, everyone worshipped him. Nobody worshipped me for living with Wen Fu. I was like that wife of Kitchen God. Nobody worshipped me either. He got all the excuses. He got all the credit. She was forgotten. — Amy Tan

Little black and tan older dog?" Verdie asked. "Do you know who he belongs to?"
"Belonged to, not belongs. Old man Rawling died about two weeks ago. His family intended to have Pete and Joe put to sleep the day after the funeral, but they both vanished." ...
"Dickie bought that crazy bird for his wife, Mary, about six years ago. He'd promised her that someday he'd take her to a tropical island and then she got cancer and he couldn't take her so he bought her the bird. — Carolyn Brown

Lead nurturing is far more effective than standard e-mail campaigns and does not require an excessive amount of effort. — Daniel Tan

You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.
That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.
If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. — Adrian Tan

Time did not exist; I had no idea of how many minutes had passed. And what was time but merely a wind that never stopped? — Tan Twan Eng

We all become different readers in how we respond to books, why we need them, what we take from them. We become different in the questions that arise as we read, in the answers that we find, in the degree of satisfaction or unease we feel with those answers ... In the hands of a different reader, the same story can be a different story. — Amy Tan

I can tan. I get tannish. It's not really tan, it's tannish. That kind of color. — Alan Tudyk

Good and bad ideas both come from the same fountain of speculation and experiment. — Shaun Tan

Getting naked feels better some days than others. (Good: when you are vaguely tan. Bad: when you have diarrhea.) — Lena Dunham

Dubya! What in Tarnation!? Why, I'll tan yer hide fer this!So, what's sex like after fifty, anyway? — George W. Bush

It was kind of a beautiful day, finally real summer in Indianapolis, warm and humid - the kind of weather that reminds you after a long winter that while the world wasn't built for humans, we were built for the world. Dad was waiting for us, wearing a tan suit, standing in a handicapped parking spot typing away on his handheld. He waved as we parked and then hugged me. "What a day," he said. "If we lived in California, they'd all be like this. — John Green

realized during the practice that a lot of what was holding me back originated from my fear of pain and suffering, and once I found myself capable of breathing in the pain and suffering of myself and others, and comfortable radiating kindness, love, and compassion, a lot of the fetters holding me back dissolved away. — Chade-Meng Tan

I ask myself, How can I relax? How can I let go of everything that's happened? You need complete trust to do that. — Amy Tan

I'm not a tanning bed person at all, but I'll get a spray tan. — Hillary Scott

You can't have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for the consequences? Saving fish from drowning. Same thing. Who's saved? Who's not? — Amy Tan

That is the saddest part when you lose someone you love - that person keeps changing. And later you wonder, Is this the same person I lost? Maybe you lost more maybe less, then thousand different things that come from your memory or imagination - and you do not know which is which, which was true, which is false. — Amy Tan

But how can anyone truly understand another's suffering unless he has felt the wound being made and the moment trust died? — Amy Tan

What it means: The world focuses on what people look like on the outside. God focuses on what people look like on the inside. Do you put more time and effort into being pretty on the outside or the inside? As you get older, you will meet Christian girls who spend more time trying to find the perfect outfit, get the perfect tan, find the perfect lip gloss, and have the perfect body. While there's nothing wrong with wanting to look pretty, we need to make sure it's in balance. God would rather see us work on becoming drop-dead gorgeous on the inside. You know, the kind of girl who talks to Him on a regular basis (prayer) and reads her Bible. — Vicki Courtney

I had on a beautiful red dress, but what I saw was even more valuable. I was strong. I was pure. I had genuine thoughts inside that no one could see, that no one could ever take away from me. I was like the wind.
-Lindo — Amy Tan