The short story packs a self in a few pages predicating a lifetime

We can’t all be friends and relatives as the world is; most of us have to be strangers.

BERNARD MALAMUD

Relations

Nationality isn’t soul.

BERNARD MALAMUD

Nationality

The past exudes legend: one can’t make pure clay of time’s mud.

BERNARD MALAMUD

Clay

The purpose of freedom is to create it for others.

BERNARD MALAMUD

Others

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

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 Order

I love metaphor. It provides two loaves where there seems to be one. Sometimes it throws in a load of fish.

BERNARD MALAMUD

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 whole history of baseball has the quality of mythology.

BERNARD MALAMUD

Baseball Mythology

Writing is a mode of being. If I write I live.

BERNARD MALAMUD

Boring Mode

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

Tomorrow the world is not the same as today, though God listens with the same ear.

BERNARD MALAMUD

Ears

Bonnie Raitt

BONNIE RAITT

Bites Knows

One’s fantasy goes for a walk and returns with a bride.

BERNARD MALAMUD

Funn Return

The idea is to get the pencil moving quickly.

BERNARD MALAMUD

Moving

There are no wrong books. What’s wrong is the fear of them.

BERNARD MALAMUD

Fixers

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

Stories

Overnight business could go down enough to hurt; yet as a rule it slowly recovered-sometimes it seemed to take forever-went up, not high enough to be really up, only not down.

BERNARD MALAMUD

Down Obstacles Overnight

The short story packs a self in a few pages predicating a lifetime

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