Norman Mailer

life absurd purpose

“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 (1923-2007)

tick unimportant

“You never do find out what makes you tick, and after a while it's unimportant.”

― Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

mediocracy precedence

“The mark of mediocrity is to look for precedent.”

― Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

property comfort

“The more things you own, the more things you need to keep you comfortable.”

― Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

America USA Television TV children concentration

“America…is being lost through television. Because in advertising, mendacity and manipulation are raised to the level of internal values for the advertisers. Interruption is seen as a necessary concomitant to marketing. It used to be that a seven- or eight-year old could read consecutively for an hour or two. But they don’t do that much anymore. The habit has been lost. Every seven to ten minutes, a child is interrupted by a commercial on TV> Kids get used to the idea that their interest is there to be broken into. In consequence, they are no longer able to study as well. Their powers of concentration have been reduced by systematic interruption.”

― Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

war fix whorehouse clap

“Yeah, fighting a war to fix something works about as good as going to a whorehouse to get rid of a clap.”

― Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

teach blind see

“I am not here only so that the blind might see, but to teach those who thought they could see that they are blind”

― Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

time kind jew

“When the time comes, they won't ask what kind of a Jew you are.”

― Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

blame poor justice rich wealth government

"To blame the poor for subsisting on welfare has no justice unless we are also willing to judge every rich member of society by how productive he or she is. Taken individual by individual, it is likely that there's more idleness and abuse of government favors among the economically privileged than among the ranks of the disadvantaged."

― Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

law of life cruel grow pay

"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 (1923-2007)

consensus group right answer

"Reaching consensus in a group is often confused with finding the right answer."

― Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

conservative tree highway forest wood

"Conservatives are people who look at a tree and feel instinctively that it is more beautiful than anything they can name. But when it comes to defending that tree against a highway, they will go for the highway."

― Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

desire success lubricate prostitution soul

"The desire for success lubricates secret prostitution in the soul."

― Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

democracy tyranny border

"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 (1923-2007)

real writer work bad day

"Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day."

― Norman Mailer (1923-2007)