Quotes from Bernard Malamud

Keep in mind, Yakov Shepsovitch, that if your life is without value, so is mine. If the law does not protect you, it will not, in the end, protect me. Therefore I dare not fail you, and that is what causes me anxiety—that I must not fail you.

There comes a time in a (wo)man's life when to get where (s)he has to -- if there are no doors or windows -- he walks through a wall.

They say God appeared in history and used it for his purposes, but if that was so he had no pity for men.

In a sick country every step to health is an insult to those who live on its sickness.

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

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.

Wonderboy flashed in the sun. It caught the sphere where it was biggest. A noise like a twenty-one gun salute cracked the sky. There was a straining, ripping sound and a few drops of rain spattered to the ground. The ball screamed toward the pitcher and seemed suddenly to dive down at his feet. He grabbed it to throw to first and realized to his horror that he held only the cover. The rest of it, unraveling cotton thread as it rode, was headed into the outfield.

Being born a Jew meant being vulnerable to history, including its worst errors. Accident and history had involved Yakov Bok as he had never dreamed he could be involved. The involvement was, in a way of speaking, impersonal, but the effect, his misery and suffering, were not. The suffering was personal, painful, and possibly endless.

Wonderboy flashed in the sun. It caught the sphere it was biggest. A noise like a twenty-one gun salute cracked the sky. There was a straining, ripping sound and a few drops of rain spattered to the ground somebody then shouted it was raining cats and dogs. By the time of Roy got in from second he was wading in water ankle deep.

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.

We have two lives, […], the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering is what brings us toward happiness All it taught me was to stay away from it. — Bernard Malamud, The Natura l (Harcourt Brace, 1952)

Write your heart out.

Mourning died slowly. It never fully dies for something truly loved.

Of course I was embarrassed but I don't think you can do anything for anyone without giving up something of your own

Since I can't be a professional on account of lack of education I wouldn't mind being wealthy.

Ricordo che la sera che ci siamo conosciuti lei disse che qui sperava di fare un uso migliore della sua vita. C'è riuscito?» «È quello che si dovrebbe sempre fare». «Mi dica, che cosa vuole dalla vita?» «Ordine, valore, soddisfazione, amore», disse Levin. «L'amore all'ultimo posto?» «L'amore in ogni momento».

I'm an American, I'm a Jew, and I write for all men.

There are no wrong books. What's wrong is the fear of them." Shmuel

Le storie ci accompagneranno finchè esisterà l'uomo. Lo si capisce, in parte, dall'effetto che hanno sui bambini. Grazie alle storie i bambini capiscono che il mistero non li ucciderà. Grazie alle storie scoprono di avere un futuro.

L'idea che qualunque cosa facesse si dovesse trasformare in un evento irrimediabile, gli dava un senso disperato di frustrazione.

We have two lives; the one we learn with and the one after that.

INTERVIEWER: What specific piece of advice would you give to young writers? MALAMUD: Write your heart out.

There's something cursed, it seems to me, about a country where men have owned men as property. The stink of that corruption never escapes the soul, and it is the stink of future evil.

But that's what happened, Freeman, who had often been in love, told himself. Until you were lovers you were strangers.