Norman Mailer Book Quotations

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.

The difference between writing a book and being on television is the difference between conceiving a child and having a baby made in a test tube.

When I read it, I don't wince, which is all I ever ask for a book I write.

I always start a book for money. If you're married five times you have to.

I did like Robert Vavra's book not only for its so very good photographs but for the text as well. He's no ordinary fellow, obviously...

A book of great beauty and manically exquisite insight with a wild and deadly humor . . . The only American novelist who may conceivably be possessed by genius.

It's very bad to write a novel by act of will. I can do a book of nonfiction work that way - just sign the contract and do the book because, provided the topic has some meaning for me, I know I can do it. But a novel is different. A novel is more like falling in love. You don't say, 'I'm going to fall in love next Tuesday, I'm going to begin my novel.' The novel has to come to you. It has to feel just like love.

Every one of my books had killed me a little more.

While I'm working on a book, I rarely read anything more than The New York Times. Which may have the long-term effect of flattening my style.