Bernard Malamud Book Quotations

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

Reader, I am myself the subject of my book; you would be unreasonable to spend your leisure on so frivolous and so vain a matter.

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

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.

First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about. Revision is working with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to re-form it.... The first draft of a book is the most uncertain-where you need guts, the ability to accept the imperfect until it is better.