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Andre Dubus Biography

Andre Jules Dubus II (August 11, 1936 – February 24, 1999) was an American short story writer, essayist, and autobiographer.

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Andre Dubus Quotes

Writers have to be careful not to confuse personal attention with the attention that's going towards the book.

Book, Attention, Be Careful, Writers, Careful

I was really surprised at the success of 'House of Sand and Fog,' because it is so awfully dark. Believe it or not, when writing it, I never had the word 'tragedy' in my head - I wasn't trying to write a dark book at all.

Believe, Book, Writing, House

I know I learn a lot from the students in my class and I'm not just saying that to sound like some generous teacher.

Class, Know, Like, Sound, Teacher

One of the things I learned about writing a memoir is you can’t drag the reader through everything. Every human life is worth 20 memoirs.

Drag, Everything, Life Is, Memoir, Reader, Writing

I really think that if there's any one enemy to human creativity, especially creative writing, its self-consciousness. And if you have one eye on the mirror to see how you're doing, you're not doing it as well as you can. Don't think about publishing, don't think about editors, don't think about marketplace.

Creative, Creativity, Eye, Mirror, Writing

We receive and we lose, and we must try to achieve gratitude; and with that gratitude to embrace with whole hearts whatever of life that remains after the losses.

Gratitude, Heart, Lose, Loss, Remains, Whole

If you don't put 99 percent of yourself into the writing, there will be no publishing career. There's the writer and there's the author. The author - you don't ever think about the author. Just think about the writer. So my advice would be, find a way to not care - easier said than done.

Careers, Done, Percent, Thinking, Way, Writing

I think the deeper you go into questions, the deeper or more interesting the questions get. And I think that's the job of art.

Art, Interesting, Jobs, Questions, Writing

I'm one of those writers who can't talk about what they're working on. The entire four years I was writing 'House of Sand and Fog,' my wife never saw a word of it. I just have to keep it in the womb, and then everyone can have a crack at it.

Entire, Fog, Keep, Womb, Writing, Years

Wanting to know absolutely what a story is about, and to be able to say it in a few sentences, is dangerous: it can lead us to wanting to possess a story as we possess a cup. . . A story can always break into pieces while it sits inside a book on a shelf; and, decades after we have read it even twenty times, it can open us up, by cut or caress, to a new truth.

Book, Cup, Cutting, Pieces, Sentences, Twenties

But the writer who endures and keeps working will finally know that writing the book was something hard and glorious, for at the desk a writer must try to be free of prejudice, meanness of spirit, pettiness, and hatred; strive to be a better human being than the writer normally is, and to do this through concentration on a single word, and then another, and another. This is splendid work, as worthy and demanding as any, and the will and resilience to do it are good for the writer's soul.

Book, Hatred, Spirit, Writer, Writing

Somewhere, sometime I'd stopped expecting my father to father.

Expecting, Father, Sometime, Stopped

Don't quit. It's very easy to quit during the first 10 years. Nobody cares whether you write or not, and it's very hard to write when nobody cares one way or the other. You can't get fired if you don't write, and most of the time you don't get rewarded if you do. But don't quit.

Care, Nobody, Way, Writing, Years

There are some beautiful books out there. But the ones that leave me cold are the ones where I feel—it’s that postmodern thing—it’s more experimentation with language than it is a deep compassionate falling into another human being’s experience.

Beautiful, Book, Cold, Fall, Falling, Leave

That was the source of my vanity and my cowardice: always I believed everyone was watching me.

Vanity, Cowardice, Source, Everyone

Even a day writing badly for me is 10 times better than a day where I don’t write at all.

Badly, Day, Times, Write, Writing

What is art if not a concentrated and impassioned effort to make something with the little we have, the little we see?

Art, Effort, Impassioned, Littles, See

my belief in the sacrament of the Eucharist is simple: without touch, God is a monologue, an idea, a philosophy; he must touch and be touched, the tongue on flesh, and that touch is the result of the monologues, the idea, the philosophies which led to faith; but in the instant of the touch there is no place for thinking, for talking; the silent touch affirms all that, and goes deeper: it affirms the mysteries of love and mortality.

God, Philosophy, Simple, Thinking, Touch

I see a lot of marriages crash and burn around me and my wife. I've always been curious about how hard it is to love well and be loved.

Crash, Curious, Love, Wife

I love the earth too much to contemplate a life apart from it, although I believe in that life.

Although, Believe, Earth, Life, Too Much

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