“ We are all so guilty at the way we have allowed the world around us to become more ugly and tasteless every year that we surrender to terror and steep ourselves in it. Norman Mailer
“ Tolstoy teaches us that compassion is of value and enriches our life only when compassion is severe, which is to say when we can perceive everything that is good and bad about a character but are stil… Norman Mailer
“ There was a way, of course, to deal with the papers. If the ears of the reporters were geared to capture accurately the mediocre remarks of mediocre men, then one had to look for simple salient statem… Norman Mailer
“ There seems to be endless capacity for strife in your system. Of course there is. Doesn’t that fit human nature? Norman Mailer
“ The best they could? I don’t think so. He paused as if to edit his woes and select the most telling ones. Did you notice how they treated the officers? They slept in staterooms when we were jammed in… Norman Mailer
“ She was one old lady who had the real heat of suspicion—it irritated her when the silver count was correct (as it always was) because paranoia that cannot be confirmed is more difficult to bear than a… Norman Mailer
“ No, but why is Croft that way? Oh there are The Answers. He is that way because of the-corruption-of-the-society. He is that way because he is having problems of adjustment. It is because he is a Tex… Norman Mailer
“ Metaphor reveals a writer’s true grasp of life. To the degree that you have no metaphor, you have not yet lived much of a life. Norman Mailer
“ Just as a fighter has to feel that he possesses the right to do physical damage to another man, so a writer has to be ready to take chances with his readers’ lives. Norman Mailer
“ I will now make an apology, although I will do my best not to repeat it. (Good readers do not read fiction, after all, to put up with the author’s regrets.) Norman Mailer
“ I will now make an apology, although I will do my best not to repeat it. (Good readers do not read fiction, after all, to put up with the author’s regrets.) I will say that having read the best and wo… Norman Mailer
“ I was in love with a beautiful, brilliant girl who was married to the most elegant and incisive gent I had ever met; there was no hope for me but, oh, the love was beautiful. Mr. Norman Mailer
“ I live by the law of averages, said Alois. I prefer to think of the ongoing possibility of profit rather than of the intermittent perils that surround all activity. Norman Mailer
“ Historical, religious, and existential treatises suggest that for some persons at some times, it is rational not to avoid physical death at all costs. Indeed the spark of humanity can maximize its ess… Norman Mailer
“ Hearn’s death was happily smudged, or at least on the surface, but ever since the second ambush he had been feeling the apprehension of a man in a dream who knows he is guilty, is waiting for his puni… Norman Mailer
“ He knew that again now. Hennessey’s death had opened to Croft vistas of such omnipotence that he was afraid to consider it directly. All day the fact hovered about his head, tantalizing him with odd d… Norman Mailer
“ But I am infinitely more sorrowful about the two victims’ families than the fact Mr. Gilmore is no longer alive. Norman Mailer
“ You know, he laughed easily, with all the goddam drinkin’ Ah’ve done, Ah still can’t remember the taste of it unless Ah got the bottle right with me. Norman Mailer
