Sentimentality is the emotional promiscuity of those who have no sentiment.

Norman Mailer

Emotional Promiscuity Sentiment Sentimentality

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

Cruel Else Grow Just

Favorite

Make wallpaper

The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.

Norman Mailer

Function Higher HigherLevel Level

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

Norman Mailer

Even Facts Forever Lost

Favorite

Make wallpaper

Culture's worth huge, huge risks. Without culture we're all totalitarian beasts.

Norman Mailer

Beasts Culture Huge Risks

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

Against Artist Blow Defiance

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

Norman Mailer

Affair Cannot Children Divorce

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

Arm Available Beautiful BeautifulWoman

Favorite

Make wallpaper

When I read it, I don't wince, which is all I ever ask for a book I write.

Norman Mailer

Ask Book Ever IWrite

Favorite

Make wallpaper

It's not a good idea to put your wife into a novel; not your latest wife anyway.

Norman Mailer

Anyway Good GoodIdea Idea

Favorite

Make wallpaper

Tough guys don't dance. You had better believe it.

Norman Mailer

Believe Better Dance Guys

Favorite

Make wallpaper

Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like putting a live grenade in the hands of a child.

Norman Mailer

Camera Child Giving Hands

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

Achieve Argue Awakens Certain

Favorite

Make wallpaper

The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people.

Norman Mailer

Art Consciousness Even Exacerbate

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

Always Bit Dying Every

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

Becomes Enough Hands He

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

America Big Center Eye

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

Born Cheats Day Each

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

Norman Mailer

Giant Hip Jungle Primitive

Favorite

Make wallpaper

The difference between writing a book and being on television is the difference between conceiving a child and having a baby made in a test tube.

Norman Mailer

Baby Being Between Book

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

Norman Mailer

Century Each Event Horror

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

America Blows Bullets Cell

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

About Act Bad Creative

Favorite

Make wallpaper

A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped.

Norman Mailer

Borders Democracy Discovers Far

Favorite

Make wallpaper

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.

Norman Mailer

Books Closest Come Ever

Favorite

Make wallpaper

Alimony is the curse of the writing class.

Norman Mailer

Alimony Class Curse Writing

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

Norman Mailer

America Few FewPeople Irreverent

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

Afraid Cats Cockroaches Horses

Favorite

Make wallpaper

Growth, in some curious way, I suspect, depends on being always in motion just a little bit, one way or another.

Norman Mailer

Always Another Being Bit

Favorite

Make wallpaper

Masculinity is not something given to you, but something you gain. And you gain it by winning small battles with honor.

Norman Mailer

Battles Gain Given Honor

Favorite

Make wallpaper

Because there is very little honor left in American life, there is a certain built-in tendency to destroy masculinity in American men.

Norman Mailer

American AmericanLife AmericanMen Because

Favorite

Make wallpaper

Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.

Norman Mailer

Count History Individuals Most

Favorite

Make wallpaper

I hate everything which is not in myself.

Norman Mailer

Everything Hate Myself Which

Favorite

Make wallpaper

The Irish are the only men who know how to cry for the dirty polluted blood of all the world.

Norman Mailer

AllTheWorld Blood Cry Dirty

Favorite

Make wallpaper

The natural role of twentieth-century man is anxiety.

Norman Mailer

Anxiety Man Natural Role

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

Ability Become Combinations Grasp

Favorite

Make wallpaper

I don't think life is absurd. I think we are all here for a huge purpose. I think we shrink from the immensity of the purpose we are here for.

Norman Mailer

Absurd Here Huge IThink

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

Awful Both Evil Exceptional

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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

Norman Mailer

Actions History Make Men

Favorite

Make wallpaper

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 Conceived Destiny Extraordinary

Favorite

Make wallpaper

We can never know for certain where our prayers are likely to go, nor from whom the answers will come. Just when we think we are at our nearest to God, we could be assisting the Devil.

Norman Mailer

Answers Certain Come Could

Favorite

Make wallpaper

Obsession is the single most wasteful human activity, because with an obsession you keep coming back and back and back to the same question and never get an answer.

Norman Mailer

Activity Answer Back Because

Favorite

Make wallpaper

Menu

Get Socialize

My Account

Login to your account

"42 Norman Mailer Quotes & Sayings

Sentimentality is the emotional promiscuity of those who have no sentiment.

Norman Mailer

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

The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.

Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer

Culture's worth huge, huge risks. Without culture we're all totalitarian beasts.

Norman Mailer

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

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

Norman Mailer

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

Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer

Tough guys don't dance. You had better believe it.

Norman Mailer

Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like putting a live grenade in the hands of a child.

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

The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people.

Norman Mailer

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

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

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

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

Norman Mailer

The difference between writing a book and being on television is the difference between conceiving a child and having a baby made in a test tube.

Norman Mailer

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

Norman Mailer

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

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

A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped.

Norman Mailer

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.

Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer

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

Norman Mailer

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

Growth, in some curious way, I suspect, depends on being always in motion just a little bit, one way or another.

Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer

Because there is very little honor left in American life, there is a certain built-in tendency to destroy masculinity in American men.

Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer

I hate everything which is not in myself.

Norman Mailer

The Irish are the only men who know how to cry for the dirty polluted blood of all the world.

Norman Mailer

The natural role of twentieth-century man is anxiety.

Norman Mailer

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

I don't think life is absurd. I think we are all here for a huge purpose. I think we shrink from the immensity of the purpose we are here for.

Norman Mailer

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

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

Norman Mailer

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

We can never know for certain where our prayers are likely to go, nor from whom the answers will come. Just when we think we are at our nearest to God, we could be assisting the Devil.

Norman Mailer