Norman Mailer records in his recent essays and public appearances his perfecting of himself as a virile instrument of letters; he is perpetually in training, getting ready to launch himself from his own missile pad into a high, beautiful orbit; even his failures may yet be turned to successes.

Etymologically, 'patient' means sufferer.

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.

I belong rather to a more classical tradition of social analysis.

Thinking, writing are ultimately questions of stamina.

What I really wanted was every kind of life, and the writer’s life seemed the most inclusive.

Photographs may be more memorable than moving images, because they are a neat slice of time, not a flow. Each still photograph is a privileged moment turned into a slim object that one can keep and look at again.