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You could not pity anything if you weren’t a man; pity was a surprise to God. It was not his invention.

Bernard Malamud

There are no wrong books. What’s wrong is the fear of them.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Book Fixers Wrong
A man had to learn, it was his nature.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Learning Men Nature
One often feels helpless in the face of the confusion of these times, such a mass of apparently uncontrollable events and experiences to live through, attempt to understand.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Apparteally Attempt Confusion Experience Time Uncontrolled
The short story packs a self in a few pages predicating a lifetime
BERNARD MALAMUD

Pages Self Stories
I fix what’s broken – except in the heart.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Broken Expect Heart
If your train’s on the wrong track every station you come to is the wrong station.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Stations Track Train
I love metaphor. It provides two loaves where there seems to be one. Sometimes it throws in a load of fish.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Metaphor Sometimes Two
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
And if at all possible, give order to; but one must not withdraw from the task if he has some small things to offer – he does so at the risk of diminishing his humanity.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Diminishing Humanity Small Some Withdraw
What suffering has taught me is the uselessness of suffering.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Suffering Taught Uselessness
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
The past exudes legend: one can’t make pure clay of time’s mud.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Clay Experience Past
No use fanning up hot coals when you have to walk across them.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Across Anger Coal Hot
To any writer: Teach yourself to work in uncertainty. Many writers are anxious when they begin, or try something new.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Character Discipline Writing
I work with language. I love the flowers of afterthought.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Afterthought Flower Language
Politics isn’t in my nature.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Nature Politics Work

You could not pity anything if you weren’t a man; pity was a surprise to God. It was not his invention.

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You could not pity anything if you weren’t a man; pity was a surprise to God. It was not his invention.

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Popular Authors

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