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 MALAMUDWithout heroes, we are all plain people and don’t know how far we can go.
More Bernard Malamud Quotes
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Completed, most lives were alike in stages of living-joys, celebrations, crises, illusions, losses, sorrows.
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Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.
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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.
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How one works, assuming he’s disciplined, doesn’t matter.
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A man has to construct, invent, his freedom.
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Space plus whatever you feel equals more whatever you feel, marvelous for happiness, God save you otherwise.
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How can we be strangers if we both believe in God?
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(Clothes) cannot change a man’s nature. He’s either kind or he isn’t, with or without clothes.
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No use fanning up hot coals when you have to walk across them.
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First drafts are for learning what your story is about.
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Charity you can give even when you haven’t got.
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Life is a tragedy full of joy.
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The wild begins where you least expect it, one step off your normal course
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Where to look if you’ve lost your mind?
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Reader, I am myself the subject of my book; you would be unreasonable to spend your leisure on so frivolous and so vain a matter.
BERNARD MALAMUD