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...never have I subscribed to the doctrine of willful rejection of the world or its visual image. To the non-objectivist this act of impiety may be shockingly impure, but God, I have no desire to be either hollow or sterile.

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
Rejection
Subscribed
Doctrine
Shockingly
Image
Willful
Either
Impure
Desire
Sterile
May
Hollow
Never
Visuals
World
Visual
Impiety

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Murder offers the promise of vast relief. It is never unsexual.
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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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The natural role of twentieth-century man is anxiety.
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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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The sickness of our times for me has been just this damn thing that everything has been getting smaller and smaller and less and less important, that the romantic spirit has dried up, that there is no shame today. We're all getting so mean and small and petty and ridiculous, and we all live under the threat of extermination.
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The sense of a long last night over civilization is back again.
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Harsh words live in the dungeon of the heart
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Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.
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Reaching consensus in a group is often confused with finding the right answer.
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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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Chicago is the great American city, New York is one of the capitals of the world, and Los Angeles is a constellation of plastic San Francisco is a lady
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Somerset Maugham ... wrote somewhere that Nobody is any better than he ought to be.... I carried it along with me as a working philosophy, but I suppose that finally I would have to take exception to the thought ... or else the universe is just an elaborate clock.
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God is a creator, not a law giver.
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Sex is not only a divine and beautiful activity it's a murderous activity. People kill each other in bed. Some of the greatest crimes ever committed were committed in bed. And no weapons were used.
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You can't be a serious writer of fiction unless you believe the story you are telling.
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I've made an ass of myself so many times I often wonder if I am one.
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The women's movement is filled with tyrants, just as men's political movements are equally filled.
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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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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.
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What's not realized about good novelists is that they're as competitive as good athletes. They study each other - where the other person is good and where the person is less good. Writers are like that but don't admit it.
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