Quote

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

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Bernard Malamud
Age: 71 †
Born: 1914
Born: April 26
Died: 1986
Died: March 18
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Men
Stars
Cosmos
Easy
Islands
Sense
Separate
Body
Bodies
Best
Loneliness
Live
Lonely
Matter
Matters
Insects
Way
Mystery
Island

More quotes by Bernard Malamud

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If your train's on the wrong track every station you come to is the wrong station.
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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.
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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.
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A writer has to surprise himself to be worth reading.
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The past exudes legend: one can't make pure clay of time's mud.
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I don't think you can do anything for anyone without giving up something of your own.
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The idea is to get the pencil moving quickly.
Bernard Malamud
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When I don't feel hurt, I hope they bury me.
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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.
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All men are Jews, though few men know it.
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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.
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It was all those biographies in me yelling, 'We want out. We want to tell you what we've done to you.'
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Politics isn't in my nature.
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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.
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As long as a man stays alive he can't tell what chances will pop up next. But a dead man signs no checks.
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We can't all be friends and relatives as the world is most of us have to be strangers.
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We have in my country (Russia) a quotation: It is impossible to make out of apology a fur coat.
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One's fantasy goes for a walk and returns with a bride.
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Charity you can give even when you haven't got.
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I sometimes confuse myself with the little I know.
Bernard Malamud