I was not looking for my dreams to interpret my life, but rather for my life to interpret my dreams.

Marriage is a sort of tacit hunting in couples.

One criticizes in others what one recognizes and despises in oneself. For example, an artist who is revolted by another’s ambitiousness.

Norman Mailer in his writings is ultimately more concerned with success than with danger; danger is only a means to success.

It hurts to love. It's like giving yourself to be flayed and knowing that at any moment the other person may just walk off with your skin.

writers are makers, not just transmitters, of myths. Literature offers not only myths but counter-myths, just as life offers counter-experiences - experiences that confound what you thought you thought, or felt, or believed.

War-making is one of the few activities that people are not supposed to view 'realistically'; that is, with an eye to expense and practical outcome. In all-out war, expenditure is all-out, unprudent – war being defined as an emergency in which no sacrifice is excessive.