It’s one thing for a man not to know, not to have learned; it’s another not to be able to live by what one does know.
BERNARD MALAMUDThe past exudes legend: one can’t make pure clay of time’s mud. There is no life that can be recaptured wholly; as it was.Which is to say that all biography is ultimately fiction.
More Bernard Malamud Quotes
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You see in others who you are.
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Without heroes, we are all plain people and don’t know how far we can go.
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(Clothes) cannot change a man’s nature. He’s either kind or he isn’t, with or without clothes.
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We have in my country (Russia) a quotation: “It is impossible to make out of apology a fur coat.
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Some men are by nature explorers; my nature is to stay under the same moon and stars, and if the weather is wet, under the same roof. It’s a strange world, why make it stranger?
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Life is a tragedy full of joy.
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Teach yourself to work in uncertainty.
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Tomorrow the world is not the same as today, though God listens with the same ear.
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A man has to construct, invent, his freedom.
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First drafts are for learning what your story is about.
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There are no wrong books. What’s wrong is the fear of them.
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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.
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Politics isn’t in my nature.
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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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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