Bernard Malamud Quotes

44 Sourced Quotes

There comes a time in a man's life when to get where he has to – if there are no doors or windows – he walks through a wall.

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

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

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

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

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

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
There's no such thing as an unpolitical man, especially a Jew.

Bernard Malamud
"Mourning is a hard business," Cesare said. "If people knew there'd be less death."

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

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

Bernard Malamud
There is no life that can be recaptured wholly; as it was. Which is to say that all biography is ultimately fiction. What does that tell you about the nature of life, and does one really want to know?

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

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

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

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