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I was now at a university in New York, a professor of existential psychology with the not inconsiderable thesis that magic, dread, and the perception of death were the roots of motivation.

Norman Mailer

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Norman Mailer
Age: 84 †
Born: 1923
Born: January 31
Died: 2007
Died: November 10
Actor
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New Jersey
Norman Kingsley Mailer
Andreas Wilson
Magic
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Death
Dread
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Perception
Inconsiderable
Roots
Thesis
Motivation
Professor
York
Existential

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Simple narcissism gives the power of beasts to politicians, professional wrestlers and female movie stars.
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I usually need a can of beer to prime me.
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Existentialism is the kind of philosophy that makes for legendary children.
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Part of the oncoming demise (of New York during its terrible fiscal crisis) is that none of us can simply believe it. We were always the best and the strongest of cities, and our people were vital to the teeth. Knock them down eight times and they would get up with that look in the eye which suggests the fight has barely begun.
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Like all men who are Napoleonic in their ambitionshe has instincts about the nature of growth, a lover's sense of the momentof crisis, and he knewhow costly is defeat when it is not soothed by greater consciousness, and how wasteful is the profit of victory when there is not the courage to employ it.
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You have the right to speak your mind.
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Love was love, one could find it with anyone, one could find it anywhere. It was just that you could never keep it. Not unless you were ready to die for it.
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Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day.
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I hate everything which is not in myself.
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Writing can wreck your body. You sit there on the chair hour after hour and sweat your guts out to get a few words.
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Every one of my books had killed me a little more.
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The great power in America is the corporations - we`re a corporate country. We`re run by a CEO and the stockholders have very little to say on how the corporation is run. Fine, the board of directors run it and the stockholders can just be disgruntled, but who gives a damn?
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I can`t get excited about politics, but I love it as a game. Because what I love in politics - this is very selfish of me, but who cares - what I do love in politics is this ability it has to make you think in new ways.
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I take it for granted that there's a side of me that loves public action, and there's another side of me that really wants to be alone and work and write. And I've learned to alternate the two as matters develop.
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Is one human? Or merely alive? Like a blade of grass equal to all existance in the moment it is torn? Yes. If pain is fundament, then a blade of grass can know all there is.
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Hip is the sophistication of the wise primitive in a giant jungle.
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The world's not what I want it to be. But then no one ever said I had the right to design the world.
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What were the phenomena of the world today? If I knew little else, I knew the answer - war, and the preparations for new war.
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Reaching consensus in a group is often confused with finding the right answer.
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Writer’s block is only a failure of the ego.
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