Theories that diseases are caused by mental states and can be cured by will power, are always an index of how much is not understood about the physical terrain of a disease.

A good book is an education of the heart.

In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable.

All photographs aspire to the condition of being memorable - that is, unforgettable.

Why wouldn't you write to escape yourself as much as you might write to express yourself? It's far more interesting to write about others.

Using quotations was at first quite spontaneous for me, but then this use became strengthened through reflection. But originally this practice came out of temperament.

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.