Quote

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

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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
Exudes
Wholly
Recaptured
Ultimately
Biography
Pure
Mud
Fiction
Legend
Past
Biographies
Make
Clay
Time
Life
Legends

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Space plus whatever you feel equals more whatever you feel, marvelous for happiness, God save you otherwise.
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The idea is to get the pencil moving quickly.
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One's fantasy goes for a walk and returns with a bride.
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All men are Jews, though few men know it.
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The whole history of baseball has the quality of mythology.
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What suffering has taught me is the uselessness of suffering.
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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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I fix what's broken - except in the heart.
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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.
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Politics isn't in my nature.
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Where to look if you've lost your mind?
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A man has to construct, invent, his freedom.
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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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Children were strangers you loved because you could love. If they gave back love when they were grown you were ahead of the game.
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The wild begins where you least expect it, one step off your normal course
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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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... 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.
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You see in others who you are.
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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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Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.
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