What's the use of being a writer if you can't irritate a great many people? Norman Mailer More Quotes by Norman Mailer More Quotes From Norman Mailer You never do find out what makes you tick, and after a while it's unimportant. Norman Mailer tickunimportantconformity The horror of the Twentieth Century was the size of each new event, and the paucity of its reverberation. Norman Mailer sizeeventsliterature America has an almost obscene infatuation with itself. Has there ever been a big, powerful country that is as patriotic as America? And patriotic in the tinniest way, with so much flag waving? You'd really think we were some poor little republic, and that if one person lost his religion for one hour, the whole thing would crumble. America is the real religion in this country. Norman Mailer powerfulrealcountry I don't trust a man who uses the word evil eighteen times in ten minutes. If you're half evil, nothing soothes you more than to think the person you are opposed to is totally evil. Norman Mailer humilitymenthinking The private terror of the liberal spirit is invariably suicide, not murder. Norman Mailer violencesuicidespirit We are all so guilty at the way we have allowed the world around us to become more ugly and tasteless every year that we surrender to terror and steep ourselves in it. Norman Mailer uglyworldyears In such places as Greenwich Village, a menage-a-trois was completed- the bohemian and the juvenile delinquent came face-to-face with the Negro, and the hipster was a fact in American life. Norman Mailer hipstervillagefaces Great hope has no real footing unless one is willing to face into the doom that may also be on the way. p.207 Norman Mailer realmayway The natural role of twentieth-century man is anxiety. Norman Mailer anxietyrolesmen A political convention is after all not a meeting of a corporation's board of directors; it is a fiesta, a carnival, a pig-rooting, horse-snorting, band-playing, voice-screaming medieval get-together of greed, practical lust, compromised idealism, career-advancement, meeting, feud, vendetta, conciliation, of rabble-rousers, fist fights (as it used to be), embraces, drunks (again as it used to be) and collective rivers of animal sweat. Norman Mailer horsefightingfear The only faithfulness people have is to emotions they're trying to recapture Norman Mailer emotiontryingpeople There is probably no heterosexual alive who is not preoccupied with his latent homosexuality. Norman Mailer homosexualitylatentalive Culture's worth huge, huge risks. Without culture we're all totalitarian beasts. Norman Mailer beastriskculture For what does it mean to be a hero? It requires you to be Norman Mailer herodoemean In my day the library was a wonderful place.... We didn't have visual aids and didn't have various programs...it was a sanctuary.... So I tend to think the library should remain a center of knowledge. Norman Mailer librarysanctuarythinking I'm hostile to men, I'm hostile to women, I'm hostile to cats, to poor cockroaches, I'm afraid of horses. Norman Mailer womenhorsecat There is one expanding horror in American life. It is that our long odyssey toward liberty, democracy and freedom-for-all may be achieved in such a way that utopia remains forever closed, and we live in freedom and hell, debased of style, not individual from one another, void of courage, our fear rationalized away. Norman Mailer freedomlongamerica I don't want to retire. I'm not that good at crossword puzzles Norman Mailer crosswordsretiringwant There's a subterranean impetus towards pornography so powerful that half the business world is juiced by the sort of half sex that one finds in advertisements. Norman Mailer powerfulbusinesssex I always start a book for money. If you're married five times you have to. Norman Mailer marriedwritingbook
