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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 Malamud

What suffering has taught me is the uselessness of suffering.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Suffering Taught Uselessness
We didn’t starve but nobody ate chicken unless we were sick or the chicken was.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Poor Poverty Sick
I sometimes confuse myself with the little I know.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Knowledge Littles Sometime
There comes a time in a man’s life when to get where he has to go – if there are no doors or windows he walks through a wall.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Men Tattoo Walk Wall Window
The first draft of a book is the most uncertain-where you need guts, the ability to accept the imperfect until it is better.
BERNARD MALAMUD

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

Down Sitting Writing
I don’t think you can do anything for anyone without giving up something of your own.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Give Up Giving Thinking
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
Comedy, I imagine, is harder to do consistently than tragedy, but I like it spiced in the wine of sadness.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Sadness Tragedy Wine
Completed, most lives were alike in stages of living-joys, celebrations, crises, illusions, losses, sorrows.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Illusion Joy Life Loss
I fix what’s broken – except in the heart.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Broken Expect Heart
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
A man had to learn, it was his nature.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Learning Men Nature
The short story packs a self in a few pages predicating a lifetime
BERNARD MALAMUD

Pages Self Stories
Without heroes, we are all plain people and don’t know how far we can go.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Courage Inspirational Inspiring
A writer has to surprise himself to be worth reading.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Reading Surprise Worth

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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