Norman Mailer Quotes About Literature

Quotes about: Literature

• There was that law of life, so cruel and so just, that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.

  Norman Mailer

  Inspirational, Law, Literature

  Norman Mailer, Michael Lennon (1988). “Conversations with Norman Mailer”, p.389, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• 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

  Wall, Pride, Artist

  Norman Mailer (2013). “The Deer Park: A Novel”, p.368, Random House

• America is a hurricane, and the only people who do not hear the sound are those fortunate if incredibly stupid and smug White Protestants who live in the center, in the serene eye of the big wind.

  Norman Mailer

  Stupid, Eye, White

  1959 Advertisements for Myself,'Advertisement for "Games and Ends"'.

• 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

  Secret, Mind, Literature

  Norman Mailer (2013). “An American Dream: A Novel”, p.153, Random House

• Once a newspaper touches a story, the facts are lost forever, even to the protagonists.

  Norman Mailer

  Forever, Facts, Stories

  Esquire, June 1960

• Each day a few more lies eat into the seed with which we are born, little institutional lies from the print of newspapers, the shock waves of television, and the sentimental cheats of the movie screen.

  Norman Mailer

  Lying, Sentimental, Each Day

  1959 Advertisements for Myself,'First Advertisement for Myself'.

• Ultimately a hero is a man who would argue with the gods, and so awakens devils to contest his vision. The more a man can achieve, the more he may be certain that the devil will inhabit a part of his creation.

  Norman Mailer

  Hero, Men, Vision

  Norman Mailer (1968). “The idol and the octopus: political writings, on the Kennedy and Johnson administrations”

• 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

  Smart, Hands, Novelists

• In America few people will trust you unless you are irreverent.

  Norman Mailer

  Trust, America, People

  1963 The Presidential Papers, preface.

• Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.

  Norman Mailer

  Literature, Revolution, Individual

  "Barbary Shore". Book by Norman Mailer, 1951.

• The natural role of twentieth-century man is anxiety.

  Norman Mailer

  Men, Anxiety, Roles

  Norman Mailer (2013). “The Naked and the Dead: 50th Anniversary Edition, With a New Introduction by the Author”, p.282, Henry Holt and Company

• 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

  Horse, Women, Cat

  "The Presidential Papers (The Sixth Presidential Paper - A Kennedy Miscellany: An Impolite Interview)". Book by Norman Mailer, 1963.

• 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

  Relationship, Boyfriend, Beautiful

  Norman Mailer (1973). “Marilyn: A Biography”, New York : Grosset & Dunlap

• In America all too few blows are struck into flesh. We kill the spirit here, we are experts at that. We use psychic bullets and kill each other cell by cell.

  Norman Mailer

  Blow, America, Cells

  1963 The Presidential Papers,'Fourth Presidential Paper'.

• There are four stages to marriage. First there's the affair, then there's the marriage, then children, and finally the fourth stage, without which you cannot know a woman, the divorce.

  Norman Mailer

  Children, Divorce, Cynical

  News Summaries, December 31, 1969.

• What characterizes a member of a minority group is that he is forced to see himself as both exceptional and insignificant, marvelous and awful, good and evil.

  Norman Mailer

  Evil, Groups, Minorities

  1966 Cannibals and Christians, 'A Speech AtBerkeley on Vietnam Day'.

• It's not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.

  Norman Mailer

  Men, Literature, Action

  Norman Mailer (2013). “The Deer Park: A Novel”, p.200, Random House

• The horror of the Twentieth Century was the size of each new event, and the paucity of its reverberation.

  Norman Mailer

  Events, Literature, Size

  A Fire on the Moon (1970) pt. 1, ch. 2

• When I read it ["Tough Guys Don't Dance"], I don't wince, which is all I ever ask for a book I write.

  Norman Mailer

  Book, Writing, Literature

  The New York Times, June 8, 1984.

• God like Us suffers the ambition to make a destiny more extraordinary than was conceived for Him, yes God is like Me, only more so.

  Norman Mailer

  Ambition, Fate, Destiny

  "Advertisements for Myself". Book by Norman Mailer, 1959.

• Hip is the sophistication of the wise primitive in a giant jungle.

  Norman Mailer

  Wise, Giants, Literature

  Dissent Summer 1957, p. 281

• I hate everything which is not in myself.

  Norman Mailer

  Hate, Ego, Literature

  Norman Mailer (2013). “The Naked and the Dead: 50th Anniversary Edition, With a New Introduction by the Author”, p.164, Henry Holt and Company

• Movies are more likely than literature to reach deep feelings in people.

  Norman Mailer

  People, Feelings, Literature

  Norman Mailer (2003). “The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing”, p.198, Random House

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