Norman Mailer Quotes

The natural role of the twentieth-century man is anxiety.

I really am a pessimist. I've always felt that fascism is a more natural governmental condition than democracy. Democracy is a grace. It's something essentially splendid because it's not at all routine or automatic. Fascism goes back to our infancy and childhood, where we were always told how to live. We were told, Yes, you may do this; no, you may not do that. So the secret of fascism is that it has this appeal to people whose later lives are not satisfactory.

Every one of my books had killed me a little more.

"I'm not interested in absolute moral judgments. Just think of what it means to be a good man or a bad one. What, after all, is the measure of difference? The good guy may be 65 per cent good and 35 per cent bad — that's a very good guy. The average decent fellow might be 54 per cent good, 46 per cent bad — and the average mean spirit is the reverse. So say I'm 60 per cent bad and 40 per cent good — for that, must I suffer eternal punishment?

"Heaven and Hell make no sense if the majority of humans are a complex mixture of good and evil. There's no reason to receive a reward if you're 57/43 — why sit around forever in an elevated version of Club Med? That's almost impossible to contemplate.

Harsh words live in the dungeon of the heart

There is a no man's land between sex and love, and it alters in the night.

The desire for success lubricates secret prostitution in the soul.

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

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.

The paradox is that no love can prove so intense
as the love of two narcissists for each other.

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

Bright was the light of my last martini on my moral horizon

You can indulge your righteous rage but the things it comes out of are pretty cheap. The trick is to make yourself an instrument of your own policy. Whether you like it or not, that's the highest effectiveness man has achieved.

I guess all that's left is to love the fire.

Great sex is apocalyptic. There is no such thing as great sex unless you have an apocalyptic moment.