Quote

A writer has to surprise himself to be worth reading.

Bernard Malamud

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Bernard Malamud
Age: 71 †
Born: 1914
Born: April 26
Died: 1986
Died: March 18
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Surprise
Worth
Writer
Reading

More quotes by Bernard Malamud

Image
I fix what's broken - except in the heart.
Bernard Malamud
Image
When I don't feel hurt, I hope they bury me.
Bernard Malamud
Image
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
Image
I don't think you can do anything for anyone without giving up something of your own.
Bernard Malamud
Image
Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one’s fiction wants him to say. Revision works with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to reform it. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.
Bernard Malamud
Image
A writer is a spectator, looking at everything with a highly critical eye.
Bernard Malamud
Image
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
Image
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
Image
We have in my country (Russia) a quotation: It is impossible to make out of apology a fur coat.
Bernard Malamud
Image
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
Image
The short story packs a self in a few pages predicating a lifetime
Bernard Malamud
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Without heroes, we are all plain people and don't know how far we can go.
Bernard Malamud
Image
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.
Bernard Malamud
Image
All men are Jews, though few men know it.
Bernard Malamud
Image
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.
Bernard Malamud
Image
The wild begins where you least expect it, one step off your normal course
Bernard Malamud
Image
The purpose of freedom is to create it for others.
Bernard Malamud
Image
I sometimes confuse myself with the little I know.
Bernard Malamud