Bernard Malamud > Quotes

“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

“Where to look if you've lost your mind?”
― Bernard Malamud, The Fixer

“We have two lives... the life we learn with and the life we live after that. Suffering is what brings us towards happiness.”
― Bernard Malamud, The Natural

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

“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, The Magic Barrel

“What suffering has taught me is the uselessness of suffering.”
― Bernard Malamud

“Teach yourself to work in uncertainty.”
― Bernard Malamud

“Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.”
― Bernard Malamud

“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, Dubin's Lives

“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilisation from destroying itself."

(Interview, New York Post Magazine, September 14, 1958)”
― Bernard Malamud

“You could not pity anything if you weren't a man; pity was a surprise to God. It was not his invention.”
― Bernard Malamud, The Fixer

“She waited uneasily and shyly. From afar he saw that her eyes--clearly her father's--were filled with desperate innocence. He pictured, in her, his own redemption. Violins and lit candles revolved in the sky. Leo ran forward with flowers out-thrust.”
― Bernard Malamud

“Her face deeply moved him. Why, he could at first not say. It gave him the impression of youth--spring flowers, yet age--a sense of having been used to the bone, wasted; this came from the eyes, which were hauntingly familiar, yet absolutely strange. He had a vivid impression that he had met her before, but try as he might he could not place her although he could almost recall her name, as he had read it in her own handwriting. No, this couldn't be; he would have remembered her. It was not, he affirmed, that she had an extraordinary beauty--no, though her face was attractive enough; it was that something about her moved him. Feature for feature, even some of the ladies of the photographs could do better; but she lapsed forth to this heart--had lived, or wanted to--more than just wanted, perhaps regretted how she had lived--had somehow deeply suffered: it could be seen in the depths of those reluctant eyes, and from the way the light enclosed and shone from her, and within her, opening realms of possibility: this was her own. Her he desired. His head ached and eyes narrowed with the intensity of his gazing, then as if an obscure fog had blown up in the mind, he experienced fear of her and was aware that he had received an impression, somehow, of evil. He shuddered, saying softly, it is thus with us all. Leo brewed some tea in a small pot and sat sipping it without sugar, to calm himself. But before he had finished drinking, again with excitement he examined the face and found it good: good for Leo Finkle. Only such a one could understand him and help him seek whatever he was seeking. She might, perhaps, love him. How she had happened to be among the discards in Salzman's barrel he could never guess, but he knew he must urgently go find her.”
― Bernard Malamud, The Magic Barrel

“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.”
― Bernard Malamud

“Nobody lived in Eden anymore.”
― Bernard Malamud

“She is not for you. She is a wild one--wild, without shame. This is not a bride for a rabbi".”
― Bernard Malamud, The Magic Barrel

“She had recently come to think that in such unhappy times-when the odds were so high against personal happiness-to find love was miraculous, and to fulfill it as best as two people could was what really mattered. Was it more important to insist a man's religious beliefs be exactly hers, or that the two of them have in common ideals, a desire to keep love in their lives, and to preserve in every possible way what was best in themselves? The less difference among people, the better; thus she settled it for herself yet was dissatisfied for those for whom she hadn't settled it,”
― Bernard Malamud, The Assistant

“Overnight business could go down enough to hurt; yet as a rule it slowly recovered--sometimes it seemed to take forever--went up, not high enough to be really up, only not down.”
― Bernard Malamud, The Assistant

“A meshummed gives up one God for another. I don't want either. We live in a world where the clock ticks fast while he's on his timeless mountain staring in space. He doesn't see us and he doesn't care. Today I want my piece of bread, not in Paradise.”
― Bernard Malamud, The Fixer

“Leo hurried up to bed and hid under the covers. Under the covers he thought his life through. Although he soon fell asleep he could not sleep her out of his mind. He woke, beating his breast. Though he prayed to be rid of her, his prayers went unanswered. Through days of torment he endlessly struggled not to love her; fearing success, he escaped it. He then concluded to convert her to goodness, himself to God. The idea alternately nauseated and exalted him.”
― Bernard Malamud, The Magic Barrel