“Historical, religious, and existential treatises suggest that for some persons at some times, it is rational not to avoid physical death at all costs. Indeed the spark of humanity can maximize its essence by choosing an alternative that preserves the greatest dignity and some tranquility of mind.”
― Norman Mailer, quote from The Executioner's Song
“but when the call came from Shirley Pedler to help in organizing the Utah Coalition Against the Death Penalty, she knew she would go out in the world again with her freaky blond hair, blond to everyone’s disbelief—at the age of fifty-four, go out in her denims and chin-length-hanging-down-straight vanilla hair to that Salt Lake world where nobody would ever make the mistake of thinking she was a native Utah lady inasmuch as Utah was the Beehive State. The girls went big for vertical hair-dos, pure monuments to shellac.”
― Norman Mailer, quote from The Executioner's Song
“He did a terrible thing and eliminating him would have left the world tidier. Or so goes the logic of the last fifty years of American justice. We throw away flawed people, people who have made terrible mistakes, with regularity and great alacrity. We jail drug dealers for decades, and we execute killers. We want them away. Out of sight.”
― Norman Mailer, quote from The Executioner's Song
“Brenda was six when she fell out of the apple tree.”
― Norman Mailer, quote from The Executioner's Song
“It was getting to be the best conversation she ever had. She had always thought the only way to have conversations like that was in your head. Then”
― Norman Mailer, quote from The Executioner's Song
“It was better than floods of misery that a son of her flesh had killed the sons of other mothers. That burned in her heart like the pain which flared in the arthritis of her knees. Pain was a boring conversationalist who never stopped, just found new topics. Bess”
― Norman Mailer, quote from The Executioner's Song
“Then the Warden said, “Do you have anything you’d like to say?” and Gary looked up at the ceiling and hesitated, then said, “Let’s do it.” That was it. The most pronounced amount of courage, Vern decided, he’d ever seen, no quaver, no throatiness, right down the line.”
― Norman Mailer, quote from The Executioner's Song
“Finally he said, “I like everything that wild Irish maniac, J. P. Donleavy, ever wrote.” It wasn’t so much a discussion as a sharing of taste. He also liked The Agony and the Ecstasy and Lust for Life by Irving Stone.”
― Norman Mailer, quote from The Executioner's Song
“When you start to open a door, the pressure has to be greatest in the beginning, yet the door moves the least.”
― Norman Mailer, quote from The Executioner's Song
“Gary Mark Gilmore: Go down on me, partner... I need it
Nicole Baker: Don't call me partner.
Gary Mark Gilmore: No, darlin'... I love it... I love it
Nicole Baker: Yeah, you and seven other motherfuckers.”
― Norman Mailer, quote from The Executioner's Song
Norman Mailer
Born place: in Long Branch, New Jersey, The United States
Born date January 31, 1923
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“You're not responsible for everything, Parker. You can't control the way things end up. Stop trying.”
― Courtney Summers, quote from Cracked Up to Be
“Liberation from the tyranny of the body contributes to greatness, but just as much to greatness in sin as to greatness in virtue.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from A History of Western Philosophy
“All that I want now is to live out my life in ease in a familiar world, to die in my own bed and be followed to the grave by old friends.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Waiting for the Barbarians
“Büyüdükçe ve peşinden koştuğu her emeli elinden kaçırdıkça bütün şeylerin geçici olduğunu karar verdi.”
― Elif Shafak, quote from Honor
“Every one of a hundred thousand cities around the world had its own special sunset and it was worth going there, just once, if only to see the sun go down.”
― Ryū Murakami, quote from Coin Locker Babies
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Kaddish for an Unbor...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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