Once a newspaper touches a story, the facts are lost forever, even to the protagonists.

Everything wrong with America led to the point where the country built that tower of Babel, which consequently had to be destroyed. And then came the next shock. We had to realize that the people that did this were brilliant. It showed that the ego we could hold up until September 10 was inadequate.

When I read it ["Tough Guys Don't Dance"], I don't wince, which is all I ever ask for a book I write.

Boredom slays more of existence than war.

Love is simple to understand if you haven't got a mind soft and full of holes. It's a crutch, that's all, and there isn't any one of us that doesn't need a crutch.

The century would seek to dominate nature as it had never been dominated, would attack the idea of war, poverty and natural catastrophe as never before. The century would create death, devastation and pollution as never before. Yet the century was now attached to the idea that man must take his conception of life out to the stars.

Mailer's Law: A thing either gets better or it costs more to run it the way it was.