436 Quotes by 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.

When a novel comes, it's a grace. Something in the cosmos has forgiven you long enough so that you can start.

There is no greater impotence in all the world like knowing you are right and that the wave of the world is wrong, yet the wave crashes upon you.

To make an Army work you have to have every man in it fitted into a fear ladder... The Army functions best when you're frightened of the man above you, and contemptuous of your subordinates.

Moving from one activity to another makes sense if you do it with a hint of wit or touch of grace. But I think moving from one activity to another can give momentum. If you do it well you can increase the energy you bring to the next piece of work.

He got a corporation mind. He don't believe in nature; he puts his trust and distrust in man.

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.

No physical activity is so vain as boxing. A man gets into the ring to attract admiration. In no sport, therefore, can you be more humiliated.

To be a mainstream American is to live as an oxymoron. You are a good Christian, but you strain to remain dynamically competitive.