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The wild begins where you least expect it, one step off your normal course

Bernard Malamud

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

Men Pity Surprise
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
No use fanning up hot coals when you have to walk across them.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Across Anger Coal Hot
Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Pleasure Revision Writing
For misery don’t blame God. He gives the food but we cook it.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Blame Giving Misery
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
You write by sitting down and writing. There’s no particular time or place—you suit yourself, your nature.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Down Sitting Writing
Teach yourself to work in uncertainty.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Teaching Uncertainty Writing
I fix what’s broken – except in the heart.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Broken Expect Heart
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
When I don’t feel hurt, I hope they bury me.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Bury Feels Hope Hurt
Of course it would cost something, but he was an expert in cutting corners; and when there were no more corners left he would make circles rounder.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Circles Cutting Experts
If the stories come, you get them written, you’re on the right track. Eventually everyone learns his or her own best way. The real mystery to crack is you.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Cracks Eventually Mystery Real Track
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
A man has to construct, invent, his freedom.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Constructs Freedom Invent Men

The wild begins where you least expect it, one step off your normal course

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The wild begins where you least expect it, one step off your normal course

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