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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

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
All my life I wanted to accomplish something worthwhile-a thing people will say took a little something.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Accomplishment Littles People
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
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
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
Tomorrow the world is not the same as today, though God listens with the same ear.
BERNARD MALAMUD

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

Down Sitting Writing
Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Pleasure Revision Writing
One’s fantasy goes for a walk and returns with a bride.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Fantasy Funn Marriage Return
Writing is a mode of being. If I write I live.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Boring Live Mode Writing
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
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
You see in others who you are.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Identity Who You Are
If your train’s on the wrong track every station you come to is the wrong station.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Stations Track Train
We didn’t starve but nobody ate chicken unless we were sick or the chicken was.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Poor Poverty Sick

We have two lives, the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering is what brings us toward happiness.

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We have two lives, the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering is what brings us toward happiness.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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