Quotes from House of Sand and Fog

Andre Dubus III ·  384 pages

Rating: (109.3K votes)


“The truth is life is full of joy and full of great sorrow, but you can't have one without the other.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog


“it's almost easier being down and alone than when you re up and no one s there to share the view with you”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog


“Dat's what they say of this cauntry back home, Kath: 'America, the land of milk and honey.' Bot they never tell you the milk's gone sour and the honey's stolen.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog


“The ocean to my right was maroon, the sky above it silver. There were sand trails through the thick purple ice plant that grew along the roadside... but now the sky is the color of peaches...

It was a ball of bright saffron sinking into the sea, turning the water purple, the sky orange and green.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog


“For our excess we lost everything.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog



“Sometimes in this life, only one or two opportunities are put before us and we must seize them no matter the risk.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog


“If there is no snake at your feet, do not lift rocks at the side of the road.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog


“And that's what I wanted: obliteration. Decimation. Just an instant smear of me right out of all this rising and falling and nothing changing that feels like living.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog


“this I know of life’s difficult times: there is always a time for them to begin and a time for them to end, and the man who knows this knows he must thank God for each day he has suffered because that is always one day closer to the sun, the real sun.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog


“if there is no feet at your feet, do not lift rocks at the side of the road.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog



“Soraya-joon, I have done all that I could. Do not be sorry for us. Your mother and I await you upon your return. We love you more than we have loved life. After your dear brother name your first son. Live here if you like, but if you sell it take no less than one hundred thousand dollars. ~Bawbaw”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog


“It’s easy K. on one side of the page you got your costs and on the other side your benefits. All you do is mark which one is which, then you weigh one side against the other and you get your decision just like that. that’s all you ever have to do. i live by this.”

"But what if you don’t know the difference between a benefit and a cost? what if you’ve never been very good at telling a plus from a minus?”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog


“Lester wanted to rise up out of this like a cloud, to drift over the valley and shore to the Pacific, to dissolve into its huge green expanse like rain.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog


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About the author

Andre Dubus III
Born place: in Oceanside, CA, The United States
Born date September 11, 1959
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Popular quotes

“I waited for him to say something more, but he was quiet.
"Was there something you wanted?" I asked.
He didn't answer right away, but I could feel him struggling, so I waited.
"If I asked you something, would you tell me the truth?"
It was my turn to hesitate. "I don't know everything," I hedged.
"You would know this. When we were walking... me and Jeb... he was telling me some things. Things he thought, but I don't know if he's right."
Melanie was suddenly very in my head.
Jamie's whisper was hard to hear, quieter than my breathing. "Uncle Jeb thinks that Melanie might still be alive. Inside there with you, I mean."
Melanie sighed.
I said nothing to either of them.
"I didn't know that could happen. Does that happen?" His voice broke and I could hear that he was fighting tears. He was not a boy to cry, and here I'd grieved him this deeply twice in one day. A pain pierced through the general region of my chest.
"Does it, Wanda?"

"Why won't you answer me?" Jamie was really crying now but trying to muffle the sound.
I crawled off the bed, squeezing into the hard space between the mattress and the mat, and threw my arm over his shaking chest. I leaned my head against his hair and felt his tears, warm on my neck.
"Is Melanie still alive, Wanda? Please?"
He was probably a tool. The old man could have sent him just for this, Jeb was smart enough to see how easily Jamie broke through my defenses.
Jamie's body shook beside me.
Melanie cried. She battered ineffectually at my control.
But I couldn't blame this on Melanie if it turned out to be a huge mistake. I knew who was speaking now.
"She promised she would come back, didn't she?" I murmured. "Would Melanie break a promise to you?"
Jamie slid his arms around my waist and clung to me for a long time. After a few minutes, he whispered. "Love you, Mel."
"She loves you, too. She's so happy that you're here and safe."
He was silent long enough for the tears on my skin to dry, leaving a fine, salty dust behind.”
― Stephenie Meyer, quote from The Host


“But, ah me! where is the faultless human creature who can persevere in a good resolution, without sometimes failing and falling back?”
― Wilkie Collins, quote from The Woman in White


“Because this is what happens when you try to run from the past. it doesn't just catch up: it overtakes, blotting out the future, the landscape, the very sky, until there is no path left except that which leads through it, the only one that can ever get you home.”
― Sarah Dessen, quote from Just Listen


“You're captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order to live. … You are captives—and you have made a captive of the world itself. That's what's at stake, isn't it?—your captivity and the captivity of the world.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit


“We can't have any weak or silly. Life is real again, and the useless and cumbersome and mischievous have to die. They ought to die. They ought to be willing to die. It's a sort of disloyalty, after all, to live and taint the race.”
― H.G. Wells, quote from The War of the Worlds


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