Bernard Malamud Quotations

We have two lives... the life we learn with and the life we live after that. Suffering is what brings us towards happiness.

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

Prufrock had measured out his life with measuring spoons; Dubin, in books resurrecting the lives of others.

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.

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

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

In my dreams I ate and I ate my dreams.

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.

All my life I wanted to accomplish something worthwhile-a thing people will say took a little something ...

Some men are by nature explorers; my nature is to stay under the same moon and stars, and if the weather is wet, under the same roof. It's a strange world, why make it stranger?