Bernard Malamud Quotes & Sayings

I'm an American, I'm a Jew, and I write for all men. — Bernard Malamud

A writer has to surprise himself to be worth reading. — Bernard Malamud

I write a book at least three times-once to understand it, the second time to improve the prose, and a third to compel it to say what it still must say. — Bernard Malamud

A meshummed gives up one God for another. I don't want either. We live in a world where the clock ticks fast while he's on his timeless mountain staring in space. He doesn't see us and he doesn't care. Today I want my piece of bread, not in Paradise. — Bernard Malamud

We have two lives ... the life we learn with and the life we live after that. Suffering is what brings us towards happiness. — Bernard Malamud

The whole history of baseball has the quality of mythology. — Bernard Malamud

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

His worst fault is he thinks his brains entitle him to certain privileges. — Bernard Malamud

Ithink Isaid'All menare Jews excepttheydon't know it.'I doubt I expected anyone to take the statement literally. But I think it's an understandable statement and a metaphoric way of indicating how history, sooner or later, treats all men. — Bernard Malamud

Overnight business could go down enough to hurt; yet as a rule it slowly recovered
sometimes it seemed to take forever
went up, not high enough to be really up, only not down. — Bernard Malamud

A man has to construct, invent, his freedom. — Bernard Malamud

But she had recently come to think that in such unhappy times
when the odds were so high against personal happiness
to find love was miraculous, and to fulfill it as best two people could was what really mattered. — Bernard Malamud

We have two lives the one we learn with and the life we live after that. — Bernard Malamud

Comedy, I imagine, is harder to do consistently than tragedy, but I like it spiced in the wine of sadness. — Bernard Malamud

I don't think you can do anything for anyone without giving up something of your own. — Bernard Malamud

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. — Bernard Malamud

I love metaphor. It provides two loaves where there seems to be one. Sometimes it throws in a load of fish. — Bernard Malamud

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

In my dreams I ate and I ate my dreams. — Bernard Malamud

There is in the darkness a unity, if you will, that cannot be achieved in any other environment, a blending of self with what the self perceives, and exquisite mystical experience. — Bernard Malamud

Charity you can give even when you haven't got. — Bernard Malamud

First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about. Revision is working with that knowledge to enlarge & enhance an idea, to reform it ... Revision is one of the true pleasures of writing. — Bernard Malamud

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

There are no wrong books. What's wrong is the fear of them. — Bernard Malamud

We have in my country (Russia) a quotation: It is impossible to make out of apology a fur coat. — Bernard Malamud

They say God appeared in history and used it for his purposes, but if that was so he had no pity for men. — Bernard Malamud

The idea is to get the pencil moving quickly. — Bernard Malamud

She is not for you. She is a wild one
wild, without shame. This is not a bride for a rabbi. — Bernard Malamud

Writing is a mode of being. If I write I live. — Bernard Malamud

You can't eat language but it eases thirst. — Bernard Malamud

Life is a tragedy full of joy. — Bernard Malamud

Politics isn't in my nature. — Bernard Malamud

You could not pity anything if you weren't a man; pity was a surprise to God. It was not his invention. — Bernard Malamud

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

(Clothes) cannot change a man's nature. He's either kind or he isn't, with or without clothes. — Bernard Malamud

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

Where to look if you've lost your mind? — Bernard Malamud

He remembered how satisfied he had been as a youngster, and that with the little he had had - a dog, a stick, an aloneness he loved (which did not bleed him like his later loneliness), and he wished he could have lived longer in his boyhood. This was an old thought with him. — Bernard Malamud

Of course it would cost something, but he was an expert in cutting corners; and when there were no more corners left he would make circles rounder. — Bernard Malamud

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. — Bernard Malamud

We are all terribly alone no matter what people say. — Bernard Malamud

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

If you ever forget you are a Jew a goy will remind you. — Bernard Malamud

If you don't hear His voice so let Him hear yours. When prayers go up blessings descend. — Bernard Malamud

Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing. — Bernard Malamud

Without heroes we are all plain people and don't know how far it is we can go. — Bernard Malamud

Wonderboy flashed in the sun. It caught the sphere it was biggest. A noise like a twenty-one gun salute cracked the sky. There was a straining, ripping sound and a few drops of rain spattered to the ground somebody then shouted it was raining cats and dogs. By the time of Roy got in from second he was wading in water ankle deep. — Bernard Malamud

The short story packs a self in a few pages predicating a lifetime — Bernard Malamud

All my life I wanted to accomplish something worthwhile-a thing people will say took a little something ... — Bernard Malamud

We're persecuted in the most civilized languages. — Bernard Malamud

She had recently come to think that in such unhappy times-when the odds were so high against personal happiness-to find love was miraculous, and to fulfill it as best as two people could was what really mattered. Was it more important to insist a man's religious beliefs be exactly hers, or that the two of them have in common ideals, a desire to keep love in their lives, and to preserve in every possible way what was best in themselves? The less difference among people, the better; thus she settled it for herself yet was dissatisfied for those for whom she hadn't settled it, — Bernard Malamud

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? — Bernard Malamud

Leo hurried up to bed and hid under the covers. Under the covers he thought his life through. Although he soon fell asleep he could not sleep her out of his mind. He woke, beating his breast. Though he prayed to be rid of her, his prayers went unanswered. Through days of torment he endlessly struggled not to love her; fearing success, he escaped it. He then concluded to convert her to goodness, himself to God. The idea alternately nauseated and exalted him. — Bernard Malamud

A man had to learn, it was his nature. — Bernard Malamud

We can't all be friends and relatives as the world is; most of us have to be strangers. — Bernard Malamud

Completed, most lives were alike in stages of living-joys, celebrations, crises, illusions, losses, sorrows. — Bernard Malamud

If the stories come, you get them written, you're on the right track. Eventually everyone learns his or her own best way. The real mystery to crack is you. — Bernard Malamud

Experience makes good people better." She was staring at the lake. "How does it do that?" "Through their suffering." "I had enough of that," he said in disgust. "We have two lives, Roy, the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering is what brings us toward happiness All it taught me was to stay away from it. I am sick of all I have suffered." She shrank away a little. — Bernard Malamud

Nobody lived in Eden anymore. — Bernard Malamud

She waited uneasily and shyly. From afar he saw that her eyes
clearly her father's
were filled with desperate innocence. He pictured, in her, his own redemption. Violins and lit candles revolved in the sky. Leo ran forward with flowers out-thrust. — Bernard Malamud

We didn't starve, but we didn't eat chicken unless we were sick, or the chicken was — Bernard Malamud

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. — Bernard Malamud

I sometimes confuse myself with the little I know. — Bernard Malamud

What suffering has taught me is the uselessness of suffering. — Bernard Malamud

It was all those biographies in me yelling, 'We want out. We want to tell you what we've done to you.' — Bernard Malamud

I work with language. I love the flowers of afterthought. — Bernard Malamud

A writer is a spectator, looking at everything with a highly critical eye. — Bernard Malamud

INTERVIEWER:
What specific piece of advice would you give to young writers?

MALAMUD:
Write your heart out. — Bernard Malamud

Would you say you have a "philosophy" Of your own? If so what is it?'
'If I have it's all skin and bones ... If I have any philosophy ... it's that life could be better than it is. — Bernard Malamud

The purpose of a writer is to keep civilisation from destroying itself.
(Interview, New York Post Magazine, September 14, 1958) — Bernard Malamud

At thirty-three the Whammer still enjoyed exceptional eyesight. He saw the ball spin off Roy's fingertips and it reminded him of a white pigeon he had kept as a boy, that he would send into flight by flipping it into the air. The ball flew at him and he was conscious of its bird-form and white flapping wings, until it suddenly disappeared from view. He heard a noise like the bang of a firecracker at his feet and Sam had the ball in his mitt. Unable to believe his ears he heard Mercy intone a reluctant strike. — Bernard Malamud

If your train's on the wrong track every station you come to is the wrong station. — Bernard Malamud

I am somewhat of a meliorist. That is to say, I act as an optimist because I find I cannot act at all, as a pessimist. 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, 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

Since I can't be a professional on account of lack of education I wouldn't mind being wealthy. — Bernard Malamud

If you ever forget you're a Jew, a Gentile will remind you. — Bernard Malamud

One's fantasy goes for a walk and returns with a bride. — Bernard Malamud

Without heroes we're all plain people and don't know how far we can go. — Bernard Malamud

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

You see in others who you are. — Bernard Malamud

Writers who can't invent stories often substitute style for narrative. They remind me of the painter who couldn't paint people, so he painted chairs. — Bernard Malamud

Who invented my life? — Bernard Malamud

It was a strange thing about people- they could look the same but be different. — Bernard Malamud

Where a boy runs he never forgets. — Bernard Malamud

For misery don't blame God. He gives the food but we cook it. — Bernard Malamud

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

Life, despite their frantic yoohooings, had passed them by. — Bernard Malamud

Teach yourself to work in uncertainty. — Bernard Malamud

As long as a man stays alive he can't tell what chances will pop up next. But a dead man signs no checks. — Bernard Malamud

Write your heart out. — Bernard Malamud

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

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

His blood changed to falling snow. — Bernard Malamud

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

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

How can we be strangers if we both believe in God? — Bernard Malamud

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

The great thing about writing: Stay with it ... ultimately you teach yourself something very important about yourself. — Bernard Malamud

All men are Jews, though few men know it. — Bernard Malamud

will you please explain how you can cry for a dead dog yet belong to a society of fanatics that urges death on human beings who happen to be Jews? Explain to me the logic of it. — Bernard Malamud