Andre Dubus Quotes About Books

Quotes about: Books

• 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.

  Andre Dubus

  Book, Cutting, Twenties

  Andre Dubus (2011). “Meditations from a Movable Chair”, p.49, Vintage

• 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.

  Andre Dubus

  Book, Writing, Hatred

• 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.

  Andre Dubus

  Beautiful, Book, Fall

• 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.

  Andre Dubus

  Believe, Book, Writing

  "The Exchange: Andre Dubus III". Interview with Kate Bittman, www.newyorker.com. March 17, 2011.

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

  Andre Dubus

  Book, Attention, Be Careful

  "The Exchange: Andre Dubus III". Interview with Kate Bittman, www.newyorker.com. March 17, 2011.

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin