The essence of spirit ... was to choose the thing which did not better one's position but made it more perilous. That… — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
A really good style comes only when a man has become as good as he can be. Style is character. A good… — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
“Tolstoy teaches us that compassion is of value and enriches our life only when compassion is severe, which is to say that… — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
To know what you want to say is not the best condition for writing a novel. Novels go happiest when you discover… — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
“I'm not interested in absolute moral judgments. Just think of what it means to be a good man or a bad one.… — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
The art of the novel is to arrive at that artless point where your characters become more real than yourself. — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
Conservatives are people who look at a tree and feel instinctively that it is more beautiful than anything they can name. But when it… — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
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… — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
So the blind will lead the blind, and the deaf shout warnings to one another until their voices are lost. — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
Writing for a newspaper is like running a revolutionary war. You go to battle not when you are ready, but when action offers itself. — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
I would introduce myself if it were not useless. The name I had last night will not be the same as the name I… — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
“City Point is so beautiful, she says. In the night they cannot see the garbage that litters the beach, the seaweed and driftwood, the… — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
“I find it’s more fun to write about something that you don’t know completely and that you will discover on route. A dear friend… — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
Short-term amnesia is not the worst affliction if you have an Irish flair for the sauce. — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
Part of the oncoming demise (of New York during its terrible fiscal crisis) is that none of us can simply believe it. We were… — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
I have always had this very strong, call it a feeling, call it a prejudice, call it a conviction ... that the mysteries are… — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
I do believe that America's deepest political sickness is that it is a self-righteous nation. — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
America is a hurricane, and the only people who do not hear the sound are those fortunate if incredibly stupid and smug White Protestants… — Norman Mailer Copy Share Image
