Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus
Andre Jules Dubus IIwas an American short story writer, essayist, and autobiographer...
beautiful book fall
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.
book cutting stories
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 writing hatred
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 attention be-careful
Writers have to be careful not to confuse personal attention with the attention that's going towards the book.
believe book writing
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.
heart humor writes
Berg writes with humor and a big heart about resilience, loneliness, love, and hope. And the transcendence that redeems.
cannot creates imagination insists millions moment predicting thousands
What creates dispair is the imagination, which insists on predicting millions of moments, thousands of days, and so drains you that you cannot live the moment at hand.
belief element shyness strange truly
Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we perform, is truly important to other people.
writing opposites grace
Don't outline your stories. A lot of fiction workshops say you should. I say the opposite. I quote Grace Paley: "We write what we don't know we know."
writing thinking discovery
What's so exciting and terrifying about the writing process is that it really is an act of exploration and discovery. With all of us, not just writers, there is a sort of knowledge of the other. We have a lot more in common than we realize, and I think writing is really a sustained act of empathy.
art believe care
I truly believe the art's larger than the artist. Who cares about John Steinbeck? I care about the Joad family.
believe earth too-much
I love the earth too much to contemplate a life apart from it, although I believe in that life.
war writing men
I have always known that writing fiction had little effect on the world; that if it did, young men would not have gone to war after The Iliad.
writing fog years
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.