Quote

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

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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
Stills
Third
Still
Thirds
Book
Second
Must
Least
Writing
Times
Time
Understand
Compel
Write
Prose
Three
Improve

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A man has to construct, invent, his freedom.
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The idea is to get the pencil moving quickly.
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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.
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The wild begins where you least expect it, one step off your normal course
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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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I sometimes confuse myself with the little I know.
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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.
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First drafts are for learning what your story is about.
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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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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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One's fantasy goes for a walk and returns with a bride.
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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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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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You see in others who you are.
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The great thing about writing: Stay with it ... ultimately you teach yourself something very important about yourself.
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Where to look if you've lost your mind?
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Writing is a mode of being. If I write I live.
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Without heroes, we are all plain people and don't know how far we can go.
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I love metaphor. It provides two loaves where there seems to be one. Sometimes it throws in a load of fish.
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