Norman Kingsley Mailer, 1923 - 2007
Miami Book Fair, photo from Miama Dade County Archives (14 November 1988)
Born: 31 January 1923, Long Branch, New Jersey
Died: 10 November 2007, New York City
Mailer was born at Long Branch, New Jersey and 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. He won two Pulitzers, six wives, fathered nine children, and was jailed for anti-war demonstrations.
Biography from Wikipedia and American Legends
Norman Mailer quotes:
Quotes found : 55 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 4) 1 2 3 4 Next
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- 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. permalink
Norman Mailer - The Presidential Papers (1963) - A nation fights well in proportion to the amount of men and materials it has. And the other equation is that the individual soldier in that army is a more effective soldier the poorer his standard of living has been in the past. permalink
Norman Mailer - The Naked and the Dead (1948) - 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. permalink
Norman Mailer - Advertisements for Myself (1959) - At bottom, I mean profoundly at bottom, the FBI has nothing to do with Communism, it has nothing to do with catching criminals, it has nothing to do with the Mafia, the syndicate, it has nothing to do with trust-busting, it has nothing to do with interstate commerce, it has nothing to do with anything but serving as a church for the mediocre. A high church for the true mediocre. permalink
Norman Mailer - Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day. permalink
Norman Mailer - Culture is worth a little risk. permalink
Norman Mailer - Culture's worth huge, huge risks. Without culture we're all totalitarian beasts. permalink
Norman Mailer - Each day a few more lies eat into the seed with which we are born, little institutional lies from the print of newspapers, the shock waves of television, and the sentimental cheats of the movie screen. permalink
Norman Mailer - 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. permalink
Norman Mailer - "Hip, Hell, and the Navigator" in Western Review No. 23 (Winter 1959) - Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like putting a live grenade in the hands of a child. permalink
Norman Mailer - Newsweek (22 October 1984) - Growth, in some curious way, I suspect, depends on being always in motion just a little bit, one way or another. permalink
Norman Mailer - Hip is the sophistication of the wise primitive in a giant jungle. permalink
Norman Mailer - Advertisements for Myself (1959) - I become an actor, a quick-change artist, as if I can trap the Prince of Truth in the act of switching a style. permalink
Norman Mailer - 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. permalink
Norman Mailer - interview with Divina Infusino in American Way (15 June 1995) - I don't trust a man who uses the word evil eighteen times in ten minutes. If you're half evil, nothing soothes you more than to think the person you are opposed to is totally evil. permalink
Norman Mailer
Quotes found : 55 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 4) 1 2 3 4 Next
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