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The short story packs a self in a few pages predicating a lifetime

Bernard Malamud

We can’t all be friends and relatives as the world is; most of us have to be strangers.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Human Relations Stranger World
You see in others who you are.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Identity Who You Are
A man had to learn, it was his nature.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Learning Men Nature
If you ever forget you are a Jew a goy will remind you.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Few Forget Jokes Remind
What suffering has taught me is the uselessness of suffering.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Suffering Taught Uselessness
Life is a tragedy full of joy.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Follow Joy Life Your Heart
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
We’re persecuted in the most civilized languages.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Civilized Language Persecuted
Writers who can’t invent stories often substitute style for narrative. They remind me of the painter who couldn’t paint people, so he painted chairs.
BERNARD MALAMUD

People Stories Style
Writing is a mode of being. If I write I live.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Boring Live Mode Writing
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
Politics isn’t in my nature.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Nature Politics Work
Comedy, I imagine, is harder to do consistently than tragedy, but I like it spiced in the wine of sadness.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Sadness Tragedy Wine
When I don’t feel hurt, I hope they bury me.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Bury Feels Hope Hurt
We have two lives, the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering is what brings us toward happiness.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Life Live Suffering Two
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

The short story packs a self in a few pages predicating a lifetime

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The short story packs a self in a few pages predicating a lifetime

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