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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“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;… — Bernard Malamud Copy Share
First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about. Revision is working with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea,… — Bernard Malamud Copy Share Image
“Her face deeply moved him. Why, he could at first not say. It gave him the impression of youth--spring flowers, yet age--a sense of having been used to the bone, wasted; this came from the eyes, which were hauntingly familiar, yet absolutely strange. He had a vivid impression that he had met her before, but try as he might he… — Bernard Malamud Copy Share
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… — Bernard Malamud Copy Share
The great thing about writing: Stay with it ... ultimately you teach yourself something very important about yourself. — Bernard Malamud Copy Share Image
We didn't starve, but we didn't eat chicken unless we were sick, or the chicken was — Bernard Malamud Copy Share Image
