Quotes from The Assistant

“When I don't feel hurt, I hope they bury me.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“His worst fault is he thinks his brains entitle him to certain privileges.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“But 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 two people could was what really mattered.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“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, quote from 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, quote from The Assistant

“Where a boy runs he never forgets.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“Lei si recava in biblioteca in media due volte a settimana, prendendo solo un libro o due per volta, perché ritornare a chiederne un altro era una delle sue poche gioie. Anche nei momenti in cui si sentiva più sola le piaceva trovarsi in mezzo ai libri, sebbene qualche volta fosse deprimente vedere il numero dei volumi che non aveva ancora letto.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“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.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“It was a strange thing about people- they could look the same but be different.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“Erano i primi di novembre e all'alba l'oscurità della notte durava ancora nella via, ma il vento, con meraviglia del negoziante, imperversava già. Gli sbatté con violenza il grembiule in faccia mentre si chinava a raccogliere le due cassette di latte dal bordo del marciapiede. Ansimando, Morris Bober trascinò fino alla porta i pesanti recipienti.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“Più sgobbava - la sua fatica era un'immagine del tempo che divora se stesso - meno sembrava possedere.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“Certe persone desidererebbero che i loro figli leggessero di più. Io vorrei che tu leggessi di meno.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“Era in balia di ogni soffio di vento, non possedeva nulla.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“Era nato buono, il che se ti capita è una virtù.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“L'America era diventata troppo complicata e un uomo non contava più nulla. Troppi negozi, troppe depressioni, troppe ansie. Cosa aveva voluto fuggire, venendo qui?”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“Quando un uomo è onesto dorme tranquillo. E questo vale più di cinque centesimi rubati.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“L'uomo non dimentica mai i luoghi in cui ha corso da bambino.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“Sam Pearl, curvo su un foglio verde delle corse, gli fece un cenno di saluto con la mano grassoccia. A nessuno dei due veniva mai in mente di mettersi a chiacchierare. Che ne capiva lui delle corse di cavalli? Che ne sapeva l'altro della tragicità della vita?”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“Tirò su una palata di neve e la buttò in strada. Si polverizzò a mezz'aria e turbinò via.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“Quando si ha qualcosa da fare che valga la pena, dormire è una perdita.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“L'idea che qualunque cosa facesse si dovesse trasformare in un evento irrimediabile, gli dava un senso disperato di frustrazione.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

“Ogni occhiata perduta, per uno che viveva di sguardi, era una perdita irrimediabile.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Assistant

About the author

Popular quotes

“You know I'm no squealer, Harry.'
'You're a rummy. But no matter how rum dumb you get, if you ever talk about that, I promise you.'
'I'm a good man,' he said. 'You oughtn't to talk to me like that.'
'They can't make it fast enough to keep you a good man,' I told him. But I didn't worry about him any more because who was going to believe him?”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from To Have and Have Not

“He who would live must fight. He who doesn't wish to fight in this world, where permanent struggle is the law of life, has not the right to exist.”
― Adolf Hitler, quote from Mein Kampf

“His friends told him that nobody was interested in his goddam soul unless it was the priest and he managed to answer that no priest taking orders from no pope was going to tamper with his soul. They told him he didn't have any soul and left for the brothel.

He took a long time to believe them because he wanted to believe them. All he wanted was to believe them and get rid of it once and for all, and he saw opportunity here to get rid of it without corruption, to be converted to nothing instead of to evil. The army sent him halfway around the world and forgot him. He was wounded and they remembered him long enough to take the shrapnel out of his chest - they said they took it out but they never showed it to him and he felt it still in there, rusted, and poisoning him - and then they sent him to another desert and forgot him again. He had all the time he could want to study his soul in and assure himself that it was not there. When he was thoroughly convinced, he saw that this was something that he had always known.”
― Flannery O'Connor, quote from Wise Blood

“There exists, for everyone, a sentence - a series of words - that has the power to destroy you. Another sentence exists, another series of words, that could heal you. If you're lucky you will get the second, but you can be certain of getting the first.”
― Philip K. Dick, quote from VALIS

“إنني لا أحتمل شخصاَ لايحمل الساعة لأن ذلك يوضح لي إنه لا يقدر الوقت”
― Malcolm X, quote from The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.