Norman Mailer

"Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day."

"Picasso had a saying - 'Good artists copy, great artists steal.' I think what he meant was that you have to internalize something so deeply that it becomes part of your own vision."

"Hip is the sophisticated expression of finding pleasure in small things."

"The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the presence of what is there."

"One cannot really love a person one does not respect."

"America is the lawyer's paradise."

"The writer has to capture something true about the human condition, or he's merely entertaining."

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather an assessment that something else is more important than fear."

"Time is the only dimension in which we truly exist."

"A powerful idea communicates something about human nature that we recognize as true but had not quite articulated before."

"The totalitarian mind always adores rites."

"Technology tends to give us more and more ways to communicate with each other, but less and less to say."

"Wars are fought by those who have the least to gain and those who command have the most to lose, which is a curious inversion."

"One must learn to accept that life is not like a novel. Life is much more like a story told by an idiot."

"The existential moment is the moment you realize you must create your own meaning."

"Probably no human being is happier than a woman who is in the act of creation of any sort."

"Authority has only the power that we grant it through our obedience."

"The saddest thing about any man is that he is soon forgotten."

"History keeps the score."

"To be a writer is to be a warrior against stupidity and falseness."

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

"Ambition is the last refuge of the failure."

"Love is a great beautifier."

"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will."

"If a person can be said to have character, it is probably because they have said no to something."

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that very existence of such a world is a form of liberation."

"Money gives you the ability to think differently than you thought before."

"Cancer is probably the most humbling disease, for it teaches you that you are not in control."

"Adventure is out there, but you have to be willing to leave your house to find it."

"Imagination is more important than having a college degree."