Norman Mailer Quotes & Sayings

“The highest prize in a world of men is the most beautiful woman available on your arm and living there in her heart loyal to you.”

“Masculinity is not something given to you, but something you gain. And you gain it by winning small battles with honor.”

“Obsession is the single most wasteful human activity, because with an obsession you keep coming back and back and back to the same question and never get an answer.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“In America all too few blows are struck into flesh. We kill the spirit here, we are experts at that. We use psychic bullets and kill each other cell by cell.”

“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.”

“Because there is very little honor left in American life, there is a certain built-in tendency to destroy masculinity in American men.”

“If a person is not talented enough to be a novelist, not smart enough to be a lawyer, and his hands are too shaky to perform operations, he becomes a journalist.”