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Quotes of the Day for 31 January 2005 - Norman Mailer

Norman Kingsley Mailer was born at Long Branch, New Jersey on this day in 1923, but was raised in Brooklyn where he wrote a 250-page story at age nine. He went to Harvard where he didn't fit in well, and got a degree in aeronautical engineering that he doesn't seem to have ever used. He hoped to go to Europe to see the war so he could write a book about it, but the Army sent him to the Philippines, the book was called "The Naked and the Dead" and established him as a major writer at age 25. Since that time he has won two Pulitzers, six wives, fathered nine children, and been jailed for anti-war demonstrations.

Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.

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.

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.

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

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.

Hip is the sophistication of the wise primitive in a giant jungle.
     - All from Norman Mailer

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