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It was all those biographies in me yelling, ‘We want out. We want to tell you what we’ve done to you.’

Bernard Malamud

(Clothes) cannot change a man’s nature. He’s either kind or he isn’t, with or without clothes.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Clothes Kind Men
In my dreams I ate and I ate my dreams.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Ate Dream Success
A man is an island in the only sense that matters, not an easy way to be. We live in mystery, a cosmos of separate lonely bodies, men, insects, stars. It is all loneliness and men know it best.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Insects Loneliness Lonely Matter Men Stars
I am somewhat of a meliorist. That is to say, I act as an optimist because I find I cannot act at all, as a pessimist.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Confusion Giving Order
Writing is a mode of being. If I write I live.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Boring Live Mode Writing
The first draft of a book is the most uncertain-where you need guts, the ability to accept the imperfect until it is better.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Accept Book Imperfect Uncertain Until
We didn’t starve but nobody ate chicken unless we were sick or the chicken was.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Poor Poverty Sick
Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one’s fiction wants him to say. Revision works with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to reform it. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Ideas Reform Revision Work Writing
We have in my country (Russia) a quotation: “It is impossible to make out of apology a fur coat.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Apology Country Russia
There is in the darkness a unity, if you will, that cannot be achieved in any other environment, a blending of self with what the self perceives, and exquisite mystical experience.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Dark Experiences Mystical Self
As long as a man stays alive he can’t tell what chances will pop up next. But a dead man signs no checks.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Long Men Perseverance
First drafts are for learning what your story is about.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Draft Firsts Learn Stories
Those who write about life, reflect about life. you see in others who you are.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Who You Are Writing
The idea is to get the pencil moving quickly.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Ideas Moving Writing
It was all those biographies in me yelling, ‘We want out. We want to tell you what we’ve done to you.’
BERNARD MALAMUD

Biography Done Want Yelling
Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Pleasure Revision Writing

It was all those biographies in me yelling, ‘We want out. We want to tell you what we’ve done to you.’

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It was all those biographies in me yelling, ‘We want out. We want to tell you what we’ve done to you.’

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