Among writers, if you don't have a therapist, it's like saying you don't keep a journal or use the thesaurus. It's a natural accompaniment.
Amy TanRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Moral ambiguity is disliked yet essential for storytelling.
Amy Tan highlights the paradox of moral ambiguity, emphasizing that while it can be uncomfortable, it is a crucial element in storytelling. This complexity allows writers to explore deeper truths about human experience and the challenges of navigating ethical dilemmas, which enriches the narrative and resonates with readers.
Themes
Moral AmbiguityStorytellingEthicsHuman Experience
In practice
Example use cases
During a workshop on creative writing, I shared a quote by Amy Tan to highlight the importance of moral complexity in narratives.
More from Amy Tan
All quotes βHer 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 TanRead
You can't have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for the consequences? Saving fish from drowning. Same thing. Whoβs saved? Whoβs not?
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I am fascinated by language in daily life: the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth.
Amy TanRead
Even if I had expected it, even if I had known what I was going to do with my life, it would have knocked the wind out of me. When something that violent hits you, you can't help but lose your balance and fall. And after you pick yourself up, you realize you can't trust anybody to save you- not your husband, not your mother, not God. So what can you do to stop yourself from tilting and falling all over again?
Amy TanRead
And for all those years, we never talked about the disaster at the recital or my terrible accusations afterward at the piano bench. All that remained unchecked, like a betrayal that was now unbreakable. So I never found a way to ask her why she had hoped something so large that failure was inevitable. And even worse, I never asked her what frightened me the most: Why had she given up hope?
Amy TanRead
Similar quotes
But why doesn't the Gospel ever say that Christ laughed?" I asked, for no good reason. "Is Jorge right?" "Legions of scholars have wondered whether Christ laughed. The question doesn't interest me much. I believe he never laughed, because, omniscient as the son of God had to be, he knew how we Christians would behave. . . .
Umberto EcoRead
In morals, what begins in fear usually ends in wickedness; in religion, what begins in fear usually ends in fanaticism. Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning of all evil.
Anna Brownell JamesonRead
I wondered, as I wondered so often when I was that age, who I was, and what exactly was looking at the face in the mirror. If the face I was looking at wasn't me, and I knew it wasn't, because I would still be me whatever happened to my face, then what was me? And what was watching?
Neil GaimanRead
She began framing the words of her telegram into a senseless singsong; so that several park keepers looked at her with suspicion and were only brought to a favourable opinion of her sanity by noticing the pearl necklace which she wore.
Virginia WoolfRead
If there is something comforting - religious, if you want - about paranoia, there is still also anti-paranoia, where nothing is connected to anything, a condition not many of us can bear for long.
Thomas PynchonRead
Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion.
Friedrich August Von HayekRead