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.
Norman MailerRead
There's that popular misconception of man as something between a brute and an angel. Actually man is in transit between brute and God.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that humanity is on a journey of moral and spiritual development, moving from baser instincts toward a higher, divine potential.
Norman Mailer's quote reflects the idea that human beings are not simply animals or divine beings, but rather exist in a state of transition. It highlights the complexity of human nature and implies that individuals have the capacity for significant growth, striving to move beyond their primal instincts toward a more virtuous and god-like existence.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about personal development during a motivational seminar.
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.
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.
There's nothing glorious about being a professional. . . . Professionalism probably comes down to being able to work on a bad day.
The natural role of twentieth-century man is anxiety.
Over-certified adjectives are the mark of most best-seller writing
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.
I spent a long time looking at faces, drinking in smiles. Am I happy or unhappy? Itβs not a very important question. I live with such frenzied intensity. Things and people are waiting for me, and doubtless I am waiting for them and desiring them with all my strength and sadness. But, here, I earn the right to be alive by silence and by secrecy. The miracle of not having to talk about oneself.
Freedom only for supporters of the government, only for the members of one party - however numerous they may be - is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of 'justice' but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when 'freedom' becomes a special privilege.
We are the representatives of the cosmos; we are an example of what hydrogen atoms can do, given 15 billion years of cosmic evolution.
I have a kind of magnetic attraction to situations of violence.
The second best thing about space travel is that the distances involved make war very difficult, usually impractical, and almost always unnecessary. This is probably a loss for most people, since war is our race's most popular diversion, one which gives purpose and color to dull and stupid lives. But it is a great boon to the intelligent man who fights only when he must-never for sport.
To have and not to give is often worse than to steal.
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