The only faithfulness people have is to emotions they're trying to recapture

— Norman Mailer

The private terror of the liberal spirit is invariably suicide not murder.

— 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

There is something silly about a man who wears a white suit all the time, especially in New York." (on Tom Wolfe)

— Norman Mailer

The writer can grow as a person, or he can shrink. ... His curiosity, his reaction to life must not diminish. The fatal thing is to shrink, to be interested in less, sympathetic to less, desiccating to the point where life itself loses its flavor, and one’s passion for human understanding changes to weariness and distaste.

— 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

We are all so guilty at the way we have allowed the world around us to become more ugly and tasteless every year that we surrender to terror and steep ourselves in it.

— 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

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

Writer’s block is only a failure of the ego.

— Norman Mailer