Amy Chua Quotes & Sayings (Page 4)

“When I'm not the Tiger Mom, I'm a professor at Yale Law School, and if one thing is clear to me from years of teaching, it's that there are many ways to produce fabulous kids. I have amazing students; some of them have strict parents, others have lenient parents, and many come from family situations that defy easy description.”

“China is doing lots of things right. It's investing in education and R&D, it's opening up, it's more cosmopolitan than it's ever been. I think it's very likely that China will continue to explode economically and certainly become a superpower.”

“I'm suggesting that, ironically, the secret to becoming a world 'hyperpower' is tolerance. If you look at history, you see great powers being very tolerant in their rise to global dominance.”

“China cannot pull in the best and brightest from all over the world. It's an ethnically defined nation, the opposite of an immigrant nation. You don't see a lot of American engineers trying to be Chinese citizens.”

“Tiger parenting is all about raising independent, creative, courageous kids. In America today, there's a dangerous tendency to romanticize creativity in a way that may undermine it.”

“You know, parenting is so personal. And we're all afraid that we didn't quite get it right. And it feels like the stakes are so high. By we - what if we made a mistake?”

“I once won a second prize in a history concert. My parents came to the ceremony. Somebody else had won the prize for best all-around student. Afterwards my father said to me, 'Never, ever disgrace me like that again.' When I tell my Western friends, they are aghast. But I adore my father. It didn't knock my self-esteem at all.”

“You can coddle your child and tell them, 'You're the best no matter what.' But in the end, when they go out into the real world, I think it's pretty tough out there and other children are cruel.”

“When my children were young, I was very cocky. I thought I could maintain total control.”

“It may be the optimist in me, but I think America has a uniquely powerful and capacious glue internally. The American identity has always been ethnically and religiously neutral, so within one generation you have Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Jamaican-Americans - they feel American. It's a huge success story.”