Andre Dubus III Quotes

I've had projects before where everyone says 'This is going to be the big thing,' and it doesn't really turn out to be. Then there is a little project you do and forget about, and then it comes out, and it's huge.

No one was more surprised that that first Boston record took off than the record company itself.

I, sort of, got into comedy accidentally, and it got bigger than I wanted it to.

I've had the experience of having a book praised but then it doesn't sell. Or not praised but then it sells.

It's a blessing and a curse when your first big public album does so well. 'Twentysomething' sold four million copies - I think we were hoping to sell 80,000. And it's still selling. In some ways, you'll always be defined by that.

My literary career was a fluke. Utterly unexpected.

You never know what's going to happen sometimes, or what you think's going to happen never happens, or when you least expect it, the Santana record comes along and just blows up.

I don't think that I had any idea that 'Fear of Flying' would become a part of the culture. I had no idea that it would go all over the world and be published in Chinese and Serbo-Croat and so on.

The truth is, I hadn't grown up really wanting to be a writer. The whole thing was a weird aberration in some ways, and I didn't feel personally connected to the level of success I had with it - the success of sorts, I guess.

I never expected my writing to become as popular as it did.

It was something I never expected to - I never expected the book would sell in the first place. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers.

I decided to write a crime novel. That genre was at the height of its popularity in Poland, so I thought it might earn me a bit of cash to go on with my work on 'The Books of Jacob.' I shut myself away for a few months and devoted myself entirely to 'Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.'

There was no way to predict that 'This is Us' was going to be what it is, that it would really resonate with people.

The music I was making for people not to dance to was the one they were dancing to.

I cranked out a book. I didn't expect it to do much, but it's sold 80,000 copies.

I think, like all big things, you don't know they're going to be a big thing when you start. You just kind of, like, play because it's fun, and it's interesting, and then it turns out to be way more important than you expected.

Really, I've been working forever, just doing music, and then all of a sudden, out of the blue, everybody is just on it.

I really didn't think this was going to be a success. We did the first three episodes and I said to Adam, 'I can't see this going anywhere. I've already used up all my urban legends.'

With Ghost, I never really foresaw that it was going to take off the way it did.

I had no idea that it was gonna take off the way it did. I thought we made a good movie.

You think you choose the subjects of your books. But sometimes, in ways you don't know, the books choose you.

'The One-Eyed Man' is a novel that was one I never intended to write.

As a writer, you write the book, you give it to your editor, it's copy edited, it's published, it's thrown out there, and then there's a response.

I made a very conscious effort to finish 'The Cypress House' before 'So Cold the River' launched, because I thought that would help build a buffer between my writing and any impact that came from either the success or the failure of that first book.

Butterfly was certainly a vehicle for me, and if it died, it still would have served its purpose, in spades. We never expected it to give me the visibility it has given me. It was just a small thing as a vehicle, and suddenly the whole world knew about it.