What characterizes a member of a minority group is that he is forced to see himself as both exceptional and insignificant, marvelous and awful, good and evil. – Norman Mailer
The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level. – Norman Mailer
The war between being and nothingness is the underlying illness of the twentieth century. Boredom slays more of existence than war. – Norman Mailer
There are four stages in a marriage. First theres the affair, then the marriage, then children and finally the fourth stage, without which you cannot know a woman, the divorce. – Norman Mailer
Jews and homosexuals are the outstanding creative minorities in contemporary urban culture. Creative, that is, in the truest sense: they are creators of sensibilities. The two pioneering forces of modern sensibility are Jewish moral seriousness and homosexual aestheticism and irony. – Susan Sontag