Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailerwas an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film-maker, actor, and political activist. His novel The Naked and the Dead was published in 1948. His best-known work was widely considered to be The Executioner's Song, which was published in 1979, and for which he won one of his two Pulitzer Prizes. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, his book Armies of the Night was awarded the National Book Award...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth31 January 1923
CityLong Branch, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
While I'm working on a book, I rarely read anything more than The New York Times. Which may have the long-term effect of flattening my style.
Every one of my books had killed me a little more.
When I read it, I don't wince, which is all I ever ask for a book I write.
It's very bad to write a novel by act of will. I can do a book of nonfiction work that way - just sign the contract and do the book because, provided the topic has some meaning for me, I know I can do it. But a novel is different. A novel is more like falling in love. You don't say, 'I'm going to fall in love next Tuesday, I'm going to begin my novel.' The novel has to come to you. It has to feel just like love.
A book of great beauty and manically exquisite insight with a wild and deadly humor . . . The only American novelist who may conceivably be possessed by genius.
I did like Robert Vavra's book not only for its so very good photographs but for the text as well. He's no ordinary fellow, obviously...
I always start a book for money. If you're married five times you have to.
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.
Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.
In my day the library was a wonderful place... We didn't have visual aids and didn't have various programs...it was a sanctuary... So I tend to think the library should remain a center of knowledge.
I've had an exciting relation to France all my life, from my young years in Brooklyn when I thought that Paris was the place to be.
When considering regulations, half of what is published is probably 50 % incorrect. The rest is 75 % wrong.
Is there meat in these? I'm a vegetarian.
You never really know a woman until you meet her in court