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The sense of a long last night over civilization is back again.

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
Aspirin
Civilization
Lasts
Last
Sense
Night
Back
Long
Maggots

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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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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.
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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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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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Murder offers the promise of vast relief. It is never unsexual.
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We're all divided souls, we've got two natures in us, You measure schizophrenia not by the fact that you're divided but how well the divisions speak to one another.
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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.
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What is there about polarity that is matter becoming more complex?
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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.
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Faction is that hybrid of documented fact and novelistic elaboration.
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Because there is very little honor left in American life, there is a certain built-in tendency to destroy masculinity in American men.
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