Norman Mailer Quotes

I think it's bad to talk about one's present work for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.
Norman Mailer
The private terror of the liberal spirit is invariably suicide not murder.
Norman Mailer
As many people die from an excess of timidity as from bravery.
Norman Mailer
Boredom slays more of existence than war.
Norman Mailer
With the pride of the artist you must blow against the walls of every power that exists the small trumpet of your defiance.
Norman Mailer
Let the passions and cupidities and dreams and kinks and ideals and greed and hopes and foul corruptions of all men and women have their day and the world will still be better off, for there is more good than bad in the sum of us and our workings.
Norman Mailer
It is not uncommon for fighters’ camps to be gloomy. In heavy training, fighters live in dimensions of boredom others do not begin to contemplate. Fighters are supposed to. The boredom creates an impatience with one’s life, and a violence to improve it. Boredom creates a detestation for losing.
Norman Mailer
Prevarication, like honesty, is reflexive, and soon becomes a sturdy habit, as reliable as truth.
Norman Mailer
About a week after they had come back, a load of mail came to the island. They were the first letters the men had received in several weeks, and for a night it relieved the changeless pattern of their lives. One of the infrequent rations of beer was given out the same night, and the men finished their three cans quickly, and sat about without saying very much. The beer had been far too inadequate to make them drunk; it made them only moody and reflective, it opened the gate to all their memories, and left them sad, hungering for things they could not name.
Norman Mailer
There is something silly about a man who wears a white suit all the time, especially in New York." (on Tom Wolfe)
Norman Mailer
Kerouac lacks discipline, intelligence, honesty and a sense of the novel. His rhythms are erratic, his sense of character is nil, and he is as pretentious as a rich whore, sentimental as a lollypop.
Norman Mailer
Harsh words live in the dungeon of the heart
Norman Mailer
How his hatred seethed in search of a justifiable excuse.
Norman Mailer
I really am a pessimist. I've always felt that fascism is a more natural governmental condition than democracy. Democracy is a grace. It's something essentially splendid because it's not at all routine or automatic. Fascism goes back to our infancy and childhood, where we were always told how to live. We were told, Yes, you may do this; no, you may not do that. So the secret of fascism is that it has this appeal to people whose later lives are not satisfactory.
Norman Mailer
rip the prisonsopenput theconvictsontelevision
Norman Mailer
Boredom slays more of existence than war.
Norman Mailer
Poems should be like pins which prick the skin of boredom and leave a glow equal in its pride to the gate of the sadist who stuck the pin and walked away
Norman Mailer
I'm not interested in absolute moral judgments. Just think of what it means to be a good man or a bad one. What, after all, is the measure of difference? The good guy may be 65 per cent good and 35 per cent bad—that's a very good guy. The average decent fellow might be 54 per cent good, 46 per cent bad—and the average mean spirit is the reverse. So say I'm 60 per cent bad and 40 per cent good—for that, must I suffer eternal punishment?"Heaven and Hell make no sense if the majority of humans are a complex mixture of good and evil. There's no reason to receive a reward if you're 57/43—why sit around forever in an elevated version of Club Med? That's almost impossible to contemplate.
Norman Mailer
Let everywritertell hisownliesThat's freedomof thepress.
Norman Mailer
Every time I move I squash something said Loathesome.
Norman Mailer
I tell you, say the rich,the poor are naughtbut dirty windwelling in air-shaftsover the cindersand droppings ofthe past, theirvoices thickwith greaseand ordure,sewer-greedto corrode the earwith the horrorsof the pastand the voidsof new stupidity.One could drownwaiting for the poorto makeone fine distinction.Yes, destroy ussay the richand you losethe rootsof God.
Norman Mailer
I wonder, said the Lord I wonder if I know the answer any more.
Norman Mailer