The art of the novel is to arrive at that artless point where your characters become more real than yourself. Norman Mailer More Quotes by Norman Mailer More Quotes From Norman Mailer A really good style comes only when a man has become as good as he can be. Style is character. A good style cannot come from a bad undisciplined character. Norman Mailer stylecharactermen In America few people will trust you unless you are irreverent. Norman Mailer trustamericapeople As many people die from an excess of timidity as from bravery. Norman Mailer braveryfearpeople One's condition on marijuana is always existential. One can feel the importance of each moment and how it is changing one. One feels one's being, one becomes aware of the enormous apparatus of nothingness - the hum of a hi-fi set, the emptiness of a pointless interruption, one becomes aware of the war between each of us, how the nothingness in each of us seeks to attack the being of others, how our being in turn is attacked by the nothingness in others. Norman Mailer marijuanaweedwar We sail across dominions barely seen, washed by the swells of time. We plow through fields of magnetism. Past and future come together on thunderheads and our dead hearts live with lightning in the wounds of the Gods. Norman Mailer togetherheartpast Khomeini has offered us the opportunity to regain our frail religion ... faith in the power of words. Norman Mailer power-of-wordsfrailopportunity The writer can grow as a person or he can shrink. ... His curiosity, his reaction to life must not diminish. The fatal thing is to shrink, to be interested in less, sympathetic to less, desiccating to the point where life itself loses its flavor, and one’s passion for human understanding changes to weariness and distaste. Norman Mailer passioncuriosityunderstanding Bright was the light of my last martini on my moral horizon Norman Mailer horizonlastslight I have always had this very strong, call it a feeling, call it a prejudice, call it a conviction ... that the mysteries are not easily available. You have to earn entrance into them. You didn't learn things for too little. You had to pay a price. And I felt that LSD was just blasting superhighways into the mysteries. And what I really didn't like about LSD is that people who were taking it were seeming to become less and less as they took it. They got emptier and more vapid. Norman Mailer strongfeelingspeople Obsession is the single most wasteful human activity, because with an obsession you keep coming back and back and back to the same question and never get an answer. Norman Mailer coming-backobsessionanswers The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people. Norman Mailer finalspeopleart Any workout which does not involve a certain minimum of danger or responsibility does not improve the body - it just wears it out. Norman Mailer healthworkoutfitness There are these two kinds of patriotism. There's blind patriotism, unflagging patriotism. And then there's the patriotism that says I live in a democracy and it's very important for the health and the life of this democracy that it get better all the time, not get worse. Norman Mailer get-betterdemocracytwo Sentimentality is the emotional promiscuity of those who have no sentiment. Norman Mailer sentimentssentimentalemotional I don't trust compliments. I've been getting them for years. Sometimes I deserve them, sometimes I didn't. But generally when people give you compliments there's one of two things wrong with them. Either they're false, or what's worse is they're sincere. They really mean the compliment. And then they're offering you their loyalty. And I'm kind of a stingy... Well, I don't necessarily want to give all that loyalty back. So either way, let's skip the compliments. Norman Mailer loyaltytwomean For 40 years we were led to think of the Russians as godless, materialistic and an evil empire. When the Cold War ended, we suddenly discovered that Russia was a poor Third World country. They had not been equipped to take over the world. In fact, they were just trying to improve a miserable standard of oppressive living, and couldn't. They had to spend too much on arms build-up. We didn't win the Cold War; we bankrupted the Russians. In effect, it was a big bank exhausting the reserves of a smaller one. Norman Mailer winningwarcountry The desire for success lubricates secret prostitution in the soul. Norman Mailer soulsecretdesire You don't know a woman until you've met her in court. Norman Mailer metscourtknows I had a quick grasp of the secret to sanity, it had become the ability to hold the maximum of impossible combinations in one's mind. Norman Mailer literaturesecretmind I don't hate women, but I think they should be kept in cages. Norman Mailer cageshatethinking
