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

Bernard Malamud

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

Down Sitting Writing
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
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
How one works, assuming he’s disciplined, doesn’t matter.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Assuming Discipline Matter Works
Politics isn’t in my nature.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Nature Politics Work
I sometimes confuse myself with the little I know.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Knowledge Littles Sometime
I fix what’s broken – except in the heart.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Broken Expect Heart
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
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
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
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
The short story packs a self in a few pages predicating a lifetime
BERNARD MALAMUD

Pages Self Stories
A man has to construct, invent, his freedom.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Constructs Freedom Invent Men
The purpose of freedom is to create it for others.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Freedom Others Purpose
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

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

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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