A List of Famous Norman Mailer Quotes By Reference

A list of quotes from Norman Mailer. Here are the best Norman Mailer quotes on various subjects. The Norman Mailer quotations list is alphabetical but can be sorted by any column. Enjoy these sayings coined by Norman Mailer. You may copy this list to build your own just like it, re-rank it to fit your opinions, then publish it to share with your friends.

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1

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

Democracy
2

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

Complacency
3

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

Honour
4

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

Lies and Lying
5

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

Change
6

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

Norman Mailer

Photography
7

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

Norman Mailer

Sophistication
8

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

Writers and Writing
9

I usually need a can of beer to prime me.

Norman Mailer

Motivation
10

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

Insecurity
11

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

Journalism and Journalists
12

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

Violence
13

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

Norman Mailer

Irreverence
14

Left-wingers are incapable of conspiring because they are all egomaniacs.

Norman Mailer

Liberals
15

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

Norman Mailer

Men
16

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

Norman Mailer

Newspaper
17

One's condition on marijuana is always existential. One can feel the importance of each moment and how it is changing one. One feels one's being, one becomes aware of the enormous apparatus of nothingness -- the hum of a hi-fi set, the emptiness of a pointless interruption, one becomes aware of the war between each of us, how the nothingness in each of us seeks to attack the being of others, how our being in turn is attacked by the nothingness in others.

Norman Mailer

Drug
18

The desire for success lubricates secret prostitution's in the soul.

Norman Mailer

Desire
19

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

Television
20

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

Norman Mailer

Arts and Artists
21

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

Norman Mailer

20th century
22

The sickness of our times for me has been just this damn thing that everything has been getting smaller and smaller and less and less important, that the romantic spirit has dried up, that there is no shame today. We're all getting so mean and small and petty and ridiculous, and we all live under the threat of extermination.

Norman Mailer

Modern and Modernism
23

There is nothing safe about sex. There never will be.

Norman Mailer

Sex
24

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

United States of America
25

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.

Norman Mailer

Pornography
26

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

Heroes and Heroism
27

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

Minorities
28

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.

Norman Mailer

Writers and Writing

Showing items 1 - 25 of 28

A List of Famous Norman Mailer Quotes you can use this list to help make your own ranked list about this topic

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

I usually need a can of beer to prime me.

I'm hostile to men, I'm hostile to women, I'm hostile to cats, to poor cockroaches, I'm afraid of horses.

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.

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.

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

Left-wingers are incapable of conspiring because they are all egomaniacs.

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

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

The desire for success lubricates secret prostitution's in the soul.

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.

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

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

There is nothing safe about sex. There never will be.

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.

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.

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.

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.