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

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.

I certainly do have this feeling of affection for the absolute sense of intellectual freedom that exists as a live nerve, a live wire, right through the center of American life. … Every time I get totally discouraged with this country, I remind myself, "No, the fact is that finally we can really say what we think, and some extraordinary things have come out of that."

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