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We’re persecuted in the most civilized languages.

Bernard Malamud

And if at all possible, give order to; but one must not withdraw from the task if he has some small things to offer – he does so at the risk of diminishing his humanity.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Diminishing Humanity Small Some Withdraw
The idea is to get the pencil moving quickly.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Ideas Moving Writing
First drafts are for learning what your story is about.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Draft Firsts Learn Stories
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
The purpose of freedom is to create it for others.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Freedom Others Purpose
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
The short story packs a self in a few pages predicating a lifetime
BERNARD MALAMUD

Pages Self Stories
Where to look if you’ve lost your mind?
BERNARD MALAMUD

Looks Lost Mind
Teach yourself to work in uncertainty.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Teaching Uncertainty Writing
No use fanning up hot coals when you have to walk across them.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Across Anger Coal Hot
(Clothes) cannot change a man’s nature. He’s either kind or he isn’t, with or without clothes.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Clothes Kind Men
Reader, I am myself the subject of my book; you would be unreasonable to spend your leisure on so frivolous and so vain a matter.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Book Frivolous Leisure Matter
The past exudes legend: one can’t make pure clay of time’s mud.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Clay Experience Past
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
Writing is a mode of being. If I write I live.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Boring Live Mode Writing
The 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.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Clay Past Recapture Time

We’re persecuted in the most civilized languages.

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We’re persecuted in the most civilized languages.

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