I no longer gave a sick dog's drop for the wisdom, the reliability and the authority of the public's literary mind, those creeps and old ladies of vested reviewing.
Norman MailerRead
Crude thoughts and fierce forces are my state. I do not know who I am. Nor what I was. I cannot hear a sound. Pain is near that will be like no pain felt before.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects a deep sense of existential confusion and impending suffering.
Norman Mailer's quote expresses a state of intense inner turmoil and existential questioning. The speaker grapples with the confusion of identity and the anticipation of overwhelming pain, suggesting a profound struggle with self-awareness and the human experience of suffering, hinting that the future holds challenges that may surpass any previously known struggle.
Themes
IdentityPainExistentialismSufferingSelf-Awareness
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about personal struggles and identity, you might say, 'As Norman Mailer once expressed, I do not know who I am...'
More from Norman Mailer
All quotes →There's nothing glorious about being a professional. . . . Professionalism probably comes down to being able to work on a bad day.
Norman MailerRead
The natural role of twentieth-century man is anxiety.
Norman MailerRead
Over-certified adjectives are the mark of most best-seller writing
Norman MailerRead
At bottom, I mean profoundly at bottom, the FBI has nothing to do with Communism, it has nothing to do with catching criminals, it has nothing to do with the Mafia, the syndicate, it has nothing to do with trust-busting, it has nothing to do with interstate commerce, it has nothing to do with anything but serving as a church for the mediocre. A high church for the true mediocre.
Norman MailerRead
Alimony is the curse of the writing class.
Norman MailerRead
Similar quotes
Let your enemies be disarmed by the gentleness of your manner, but let them feel at the same time the steadiness of your just resentment for there is a great difference between bearing malice, which is always ungenerous, and a resolute self-defense which is ever prudent and justifiable.
Lord ChesterfieldRead
Geometry is one and eternal shining in the mind of God. That share in it accorded to men is one of the reasons that Man is the image of God.
Johannes KeplerRead
Bizarre and engrossingly disturbing, Naked Lunch, finds truth in madness.
William S. BurroughsRead
To the extent that you eliminate ego from your activities, God comes into them - but no more and no less. Begin with that, and let it cost you your uttermost. In this way, and no other, is true peace to be found.
Meister EckhartRead
If a soul is not clothed with the teachings of the Church he cannot merit to have Jesus seated in him.
St. JeromeRead
Here's the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it's all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they're not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before.
Chris RockRead