9 Quotes & Sayings By Andre Dubus

Andre Dubus, born in New York City, was the author of the story The House on Mango Street. His father died when he was very young and his mother, a former beauty-pageant winner, supported him for most of his life. He attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he was an editor of the school newspaper ("The Phillipsian") and graduated with honors. After high school, he attended Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire Read more

While there, he wrote for the college newspaper ("The Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern") and served as the editorial cartoonist for the student humor magazine "The Scarlet". He graduated with honors from Dartmouth in 1973.

A story can always break into pieces while it sits...
1
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
2
What cracks had he left in their hearts? Did they love less now and settle for less in return, as they held onto parts of themselves they did not want to give and lose again? Or - and he wished this - did they love more fully because they had survived pain, so no longer feared it? Andre Dubus
3
What is art if not a concentrated and impassioned effort to make something with the little we have, the little we see? Andre Dubus
4
It is not hard to live through a day, if you can live through a moment. What creates despair is the imagination, which pretends there is a future, and insists on predicting millions of moments, thousands of days, and so drains you that you cannot live the moment at hand. ("A Father's Story") Andre Dubus
5
There’s something about taking the cart back instead of leaving it in the parking lot… It’s significant… Because somebody has to take them in… And if you know that, and you do it for that one guy, you do something else. You join the world… You move out of your isolation and become universal. Andre Dubus
6
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. Andre Dubus
7
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. Andre Dubus
8
Talent is cheap. What matters is discipline. Andre Dubus