Bernard Malamud Quotes

If you ever forget you are a Jew a goy will remind you.

When I don't feel hurt, I hope they bury me.

Life is a tragedy full of joy.

You see in others who you are.

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.

The wild begins where you least expect it, one step off your normal course

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.

Children were strangers you loved because you could love. If they gave back love when they were grown you were ahead of the game.

A writer has to surprise himself to be worth reading.

Space plus whatever you feel equals more whatever you feel, marvelous for happiness, God save you otherwise.

Those who write about life, reflect about life. you see in others who you are.

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?

No use fanning up hot coals when you have to walk across them.

The past exudes legend: one can't make pure clay of time's mud.

The whole history of baseball has the quality of mythology.

To any writer: Teach yourself to work in uncertainty. Many writers are anxious when they begin, or try something new. Even Matisse painted some of his Fauvist pictures in anxiety. Maybe that helped him to simplify. Character, discipline, negative capability count. Write, complete, revise. If it doesn't work, begin something else.

Teach yourself to work in uncertainty.

The short story packs a self in a few pages predicating a lifetime

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

We didn't starve but nobody ate chicken unless we were sick or the chicken was.

I fix what's broken - except in the heart.

You write by sitting down and writing. There's no particular time or place—you suit yourself, your nature. How one works, assuming he's disciplined, doesn't matter.

The purpose of freedom is to create it for others.

Prufrock had measured out his life with measuring spoons; Dubin, in books resurrecting the lives of others.