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
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
The horror of the Twentieth Century was the size of each new event, and the paucity of its reverberation.
—Norman Mailer
Topics: Twentieth Century, Events
Left-wingers are incapable of conspiring because they’re all egomaniacs.
—Norman Mailer
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
Topics: Heroes, Heroes/Heroism
Every moment of one’s existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit.
—Norman Mailer
Topics: Existence, Change
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
Topics: Deception/Lying, Lies
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
Topics: Authors & Writing, Writing, Writers
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