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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

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

Change Ears World
… it’s possible to let love fly by like a cloud in a windy sky if one is too timid, or perhaps unable to believe he is entitled to good fortune.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Believe Cloud Sky
Teach yourself to work in uncertainty.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Teaching Uncertainty Writing
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
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
The idea is to get the pencil moving quickly.
BERNARD MALAMUD

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

Across Anger Coal Hot
Those who write about life, reflect about life. you see in others who you are.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Who You Are Writing
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
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
You see in others who you are.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Identity Who You Are
Prufrock had measured out his life with measuring spoons; Dubin, in books resurrecting the lives of others.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Book Inspire Life Resurrecting
How can we be strangers if we both believe in God?
BERNARD MALAMUD

Believe Both God Stranger
If you ever forget you are a Jew a goy will remind you.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Few Forget Jokes Remind
I work with language. I love the flowers of afterthought.
BERNARD MALAMUD

Afterthought Flower Language

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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