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Andre Dubus

Andre Dubus Biography

Novelist

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“And I felt more like me than I ever had, as if the years I'd lived so far had formed layers of skin and muscle over myself that others saw as me when the real one had been underneath all along, and I knew writing- even writing badly- had peeled away those layers, and I knew then that if I wanted to stay awake and alive, if I wanted to stay me, I would have to keep writing.”

IfsWritingYearsRealWantedFeltSawsAliveSkinsLike MeAwakeMusclesLayersReal Ones
Author:Andre Dubus
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“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.”

KnowsBookStoriesAbleBreakPiecesCuttingDangerousTwentiesSentencesDecadesCupsShelvesCaress
Book:Meditations from a Movable Chair
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“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.”

KnowsWritingTryingHumansBookSoulHardSpiritHuman BeingsHatredPrejudiceStriveEndureWorthyResilienceGloriousConcentrationDesksSplendidMeannessSingle WordPettiness
Author:Andre Dubus
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“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.”

IfsHardMomentsHandsImaginationMillionsDespairLive In The MomentDrainsPredicting
Book:The Times Are Never So Bad: A Novella and Eight Short Stories
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“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.”

IfsThinkingWritingHumansWellsSelfEyeConsciousnessEnemyCreativityCreativeMirrorsEditorsPublishingCreative WritingMarketplaceDoing YouSelf Consciousness
Author:Andre Dubus
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“I've had a lot of glamour come my way in the last 10 years - you know, movie stars and mansions and red carpets and trips to Europe and crazy stuff I never would have imagined - and I look at them as if I'm the bartender in the corner of the room. They've never gone into my psyche. I look at them with distance, and wonder.”

IfsKnowsWayYearsLooksLastsStarsStuffRoomsWonderGoneCrazyEuropeRedDistanceCornersMy WayMovie StarCarpetGlamourMansionsRed CarpetBartender
Author:Andre Dubus
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