House of Sand and Fog Quotes

“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, 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, 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, House of Sand and Fog

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

“Regret was Fear’s big sister,”
― Andre Dubus III, 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, House of Sand and Fog

“I feel so much I hardly feel anything at all.”
― Andre Dubus III, 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, 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, House of Sand and Fog

“But when he sat on the bed beside me, then leaned over and kissed my forehead, my cheek, my lips, his hand pressed to my rib cage, the other stroking my hair back, it was like I was an empty well and didn't know it until just now when he uncovered me and it started to rain.”
― Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog

“Lester let the phone ring four more times, then hung up. He hadn’t expected Kathy not to answer and now he felt as cut off from things as he could imagine. For a second, it was as if she had never existed and wasn’t real at all; what they had started together was an illusion, just a lovely rug thrown over a hole in the floor and now the rug was gone and Lester was falling into something that had been there all along and she had only come into his life to lead him to it.”
― Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog

“I pull sufficient tape free of its roll, the sound like the cracking of ice over a frozen lake, what I felt beneath my feet as a boy with my father in the north mountains.”
― Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog

“It was adrenaline but more; it was adrenaline that had stopped coming in amateurish gushes and instead shifted into a slow feed, the whole body on a sort of molecular alert.”
― Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog

“In my country, there is an old belief that if a bird flies into your home it is an angel who has come to guide you and you must look at its presence as a blessing from God.”
― Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog

“The panic of the weak never helps the strong.”
― Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog

“My chin kept dropping to my chest, my hair in my face, my veins an alcoholic vapor ready to burn. Nothing but tequila, wine, and rum feeding me into a lava river, a huge molten mother rolling over me, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,”
― Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog

“it was like being eleven again, walking into my brother’s room for a pencil or pen, pulling open drawers and finding a color magazine of women sucking off men, when all the tiny currents open in you and they feel like evil and opportunity all at once, temptation and salvation, the cause and the cure, touch it, pick it up, take it away with you.”
― Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog

“I reached over and rested my hand on the gun, felt its steel indifference.”
― Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog

“The place was loud with voices, the ring of cash registers, different kinds of music coming from each shop—like it’s all a test to see how much you can take—teenage girls talking and giggling in twos and threes, their hair high, their nails flashing.”
― Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog

“I wanted bottled water too but didn’t see any with the soft drinks, and I didn’t want to ask, so I bought an ice cream sandwich.”
― Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog

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

“I have seen in the windows the pale blue glow of at least one television in every home. And I am told that many family meals are eaten in front of that screen as well. And perhaps this explains the face of Americans, the eyes that never appear satisfied, at peace with their work, or the day God has given them; these people have the eyes of very small children who are forever looking for their next source of distraction, entertainment, or a sweet taste in the mouth. And it is no longer to me a surprise that it is the recent immigrants who excel in this land, the Orientals, the Greeks, and yes, the Persians. We know rich opportunity when we see it.”
― Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog

“That’s my problem, Kathy—I’m sentimental about my fuckups.”
― Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog

“I felt like I’d been apart from groups of normal people and their nice conversations my whole life.”
― Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog

“Yes, I have earned enough to slow our spending, but each check cashed felt to me like one less bone and muscle in my back, those a man needs in order to stand straight.”
― Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog