Source: Education of a Wandering Man (1989), Ch. 1
“One can't make pure clay of time's mud. There is no life that can be recaptured wholly; as it was. Which is to say that all biography is ultimately fiction.”
Dubin's Lives (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979) p. 27
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Bernard Malamud 19
American author 1914–1986Related quotes

“No one in life can ever match fiction”
Source: The Truth About Lord Stoneville

On the congruent nature of fiction and nonfiction in “Viet Thanh Nguyen: From both sides” https://www.writermag.com/writing-inspiration/author-interviews/viet-thanh-nguyen-sides/ in The Writer (2017 Jan 17)

On l'a tuée à coups de chassepot
A coups de mitrailleuse,
Et roulée avec son drapeau
Dans la terre argileuse.
Et la tourbe des bourreaux gras
Se croyait la plus forte.
Tout ça n'empêche pas, Nicolas
Qu'la Commune n'est pas morte.
Elle n'est pas morte ! (1886).

“Data! data! data!" he cried impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay.”
Source: The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952) for The Sea Around Us; also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 91

“Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure.”
Preliminary.
My Summer in a Garden (1870)

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XI The Notes on Sculpture