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 MALAMUDThe 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.
More Bernard Malamud Quotes
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Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.
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As long as a man stays alive he can’t tell what chances will pop up next. But a dead man signs no checks.
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The purpose of freedom is to create it for others.
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Tomorrow the world is not the same as today, though God listens with the same ear.
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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.
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How can we be strangers if we both believe in God?
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We can’t all be friends and relatives as the world is; most of us have to be strangers.
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Charity you can give even when you haven’t got.
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We have in my country (Russia) a quotation: “It is impossible to make out of apology a fur coat.
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Prufrock had measured out his life with measuring spoons; Dubin, in books resurrecting the lives of others.
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We have two lives, the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering is what brings us toward happiness.
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First drafts are for learning what your story is about.
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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.
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Politics isn’t in my nature.
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You could not pity anything if you weren’t a man; pity was a surprise to God. It was not his invention.
BERNARD MALAMUD