Quotes by Bernard Malamud

“Charity you can give even when you haven't got.”

“I fix what's broken - except in the heart.”

“Without heroes we are all plain people and don't know how far we can go.”

“We have two lives, Roy, the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering is what brings us toward happiness.”

“Without heroes, we're all plain people, and don't know how far we can go.”

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

“Levin wanted friendship and got friendliness; he wanted steak and they offered spam.”

“If you ever forget you are a Jew a goy will remind you.”

“Mourning is a hard business, Cesare said. If people knew there'd be less death.”

“… keep in mind that the purpose of freedom is to create it for others.”

“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.”

“I think I said All men are Jews except they don'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...”

“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.”

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

“Those who write about life, reflect about life…. you see in others who you are.”

“Life is a tragedy full of joy.”

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

“If I may, I would at this point urge young writers not to be too much concerned with the vagaries of the marketplace. Not everyone can make a first-rate living as a writer, but a writer who is seri...”

“I have written almost all my life. My writing has drawn, out of a reluctant soul, a measure of astonishment at the nature of life. And the more I wrote well, the better I felt I had to write. In wr...”

“Bernard Malamud was like a second father to [my husband] Clark and me: he was Clark's teacher and when I got married that event also meant our friendship. I loved his writing but I didn't think it ...”