"On a late-winter evening in 1983, while driving through fog along the Maine coast, recollections of old campfires began to drift into the March mist, and I thought of the Abnaki Indians of the Algonquin tribe who dwelt near Bangor a thousand years ago."
Nachem Malech Mailer, known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American writer, journalist, and filmmaker. In a career spanning more than six decades, Mailer had 11 best-selling books, at least one in each of the seven decades after World War II.
"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 … Were all getting so mean and small and petty and ridiculous, and we all live under the threat of extermination."
"The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people."
"Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing."
"Youre contending with a genius, D.J. is his name, only American alive who could outtalk Cassius Clay, thats lip."
"There are four stages to marriage. First theres the affair, then theres the marriage, then children, and finally the fourth stage, without which you cannot know a woman, the divorce."
"Every moment of ones existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit."