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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.

Norman Mailer

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Norman Mailer
Age: 84 †
Born: 1923
Born: January 31
Died: 2007
Died: November 10
Actor
Biographer
Essayist
Film Director
Film Editor
Film Producer
Historian
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
Stage Actor
Long Branch
New Jersey
Norman Kingsley Mailer
Andreas Wilson
Men
Nations
Proportion
Fighting
Effective
Individual
Soldier
Living
Army
Poorer
War
Standards
Equation
Past
Materials
Equations
Wells
Nation
Fights
Well
Amount
Standard

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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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I had a quick grasp of the secret to sanity, it had become the ability to hold the maximum of impossible combinations in one's mind.
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So you come soon to power, but you have merely inherited the crisis and yours is the profit of cancer.
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Existentialism is the kind of philosophy that makes for legendary children.
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For what does it mean to be a hero? It requires you to be prepared to deal with forces larger than yourself.
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Every one of my books had killed me a little more.
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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 never saw love as luck, as that gift from the gods which put everything else in place, and allowed you to succeed. No, I saw love as reward. One could find it only after one's virtue, or one's courage, or self-sacrifice, or generosity, or loss, has succeeded in stirring the power of creation.
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Even an evil man can have principles—he can be true to his own evil, which is not always so easy.
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I met Jack Kennedy in November, 1946... We went out on a double date and it turned out to be a fair evening for me. I seduced a girl who would have been bored by a diamond as big as the Ritz.
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I respect most boxers because they're violent people who learned to discipline themselves ... a good boxer is an artist ... Boxing is existential - some fights are better than others.
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Murder offers the promise of vast relief. It is never unsexual.
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The art of the novel is to arrive at that artless point where your characters become more real than yourself.
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What is there about polarity that is matter becoming more complex?
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Alimony is the curse of the writing class.
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