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

Bernard Malamud

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
The whole history of baseball has the quality of mythology.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Baseball Mythology Quality
Space plus whatever you feel equals more whatever you feel, marvelous for happiness, God save you otherwise.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Happiness Plus Space
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
Nationality isn’t soul.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Nation Nationality Soul
How can we be strangers if we both believe in God?
BERNARD MALAMUD

Believe Both God Stranger
(Clothes) cannot change a man’s nature. He’s either kind or he isn’t, with or without clothes.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Clothes Kind Men
You could not pity anything if you weren’t a man; pity was a surprise to God. It was not his invention.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Men Pity Surprise
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 Forever Hurt Obstacles Overnight
We’re persecuted in the most civilized languages.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Civilized Language Persecuted
First drafts are for learning what your story is about.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Draft Firsts Learn Stories
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
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 has to construct, invent, his freedom.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Constructs Freedom Invent Men
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?
BERNARD MALAMUD

Adventure Moon Stars

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

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

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