Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer

"Writer’s block is only a failure of the ego."
25 Quotes
"Writer’s block is only a failure of the ego."
Norman Mailer
"“Any war that requires the suspension of reason as a necessity for support is a bad war.”"
Norman Mailer
"The highest prize in a world of men is the most beautiful woman available on your arm and living there in her heart loyal to you."
Norman Mailer
"In America few people will trust you unless you are irreverent."
Norman Mailer
"There are four stages in a marriage. First there's the affair, then the marriage, then children and finally the fourth stage, without which you cannot know a woman, the divorce."
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
"Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most."
Norman Mailer
"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
"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
"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
"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
"Boredom slays more of existence than war."
Norman Mailer
"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
"I met Jack Kennedy in November, 1946. We were both war heroes, and both of us had just been elected to Congress."
Norman Mailer
"Faction is that hybrid of documented fact and novelistic elaboration."
Norman Mailer
"You don't know a woman until you've met her in court."
Norman Mailer
"If a person is not talented enough to be a novelist, not smart enough to be a lawyer, and his hands are too shaky to perform operations, he becomes a journalist."
Norman Mailer
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