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The novelist, thinks Sam, perspiring beneath blankets, must live in paranoia and seek to be one with the world; he must be terrified of experience and hungry for it; he must think himself nothing and believe he is superior to all. The feminine in his nature cries out for proof he is a man; he loves himself and therefore despises all that he is.

— Norman Mailer The Man Who Studied Yoga (1956)

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More quotes by Norman Mailer

The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people.

One's condition on marijuana is always existential. One can feel the importance of each moment and how it is changing one.

Interview in Writers at Work Third Series (1967)

We live in a time which has created the art of the absurd. It is our art.

Cannibals and Christians (1966)

The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.

Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1977)

Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Norman Mailer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.