Quotes from The Executioner's Song

Norman Mailer ·  1056 pages

Rating: (15.9K votes)


“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



About the author

Norman Mailer
Born place: in Long Branch, New Jersey, The United States
Born date January 31, 1923
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Flannery craved a cigarette. Her nerves were so tense that only nicotine could soothe them, and for the first time, she genuinely understood how the drug worked. It wasn't just a prop or an affectation. It was a tool for mental health.”
― Sylvia Brownrigg, quote from Pages for You


“I think people fall in love with the idea of it, but lust is what you fall into, and love can only grow from that,”
― River Savage, quote from Incandescent


“We drove down Corydon avenue towards my mother's apartment. How are you doing, she asked me? Fine, fine, I said. I wanted to tell her that I felt I was dying from rage and that I felt guilty about everything and that when I was a kid I woke up every morning singing, that I couldn't wait to leap out of bed and rush out of the house into the magical kingdom that was my world, that dust made visible in sunbeams gave me real authentic joy, that my sparkly golden banana-seated bike with the very high sissy bar took my breath away, the majesty of it, that it was mine, that there was no freer soul in the world than me at age nine, and that now I wake up every morning reminding myself that control is an illusion, taking deep breaths and counting to ten trying to ward off panic attacks and hoping that my own hands hadn't managed to strangle me while I slept.”
― Miriam Toews, quote from All My Puny Sorrows


“I laid the side of my face on his back, hugging him close. “Nothing feels right without you. Not school or home,” I cried. “Everything is just giving me enough air to get to the next day without you. I never stopped being yours.”
He dropped his head back, letting out a sigh.
I swallowed, taking my chance. “I love you, Jared. I’ve always loved you, and I will always love you.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Aflame


“That was what university was: thinking you were going to open yourself up to a universe, and meeting nobody.”
― Amélie Nothomb, quote from Antichrista


Interesting books

Flirt
(29.3K)
Flirt
by Laurell K. Hamilton
Civilization and Its Discontents
(25.5K)
Civilization and Its...
by Sigmund Freud
Seeking Crystal
(6.7K)
Seeking Crystal
by Joss Stirling
Rock Chick Rescue
(31.2K)
Rock Chick Rescue
by Kristen Ashley
Cross
(48.1K)
Cross
by James Patterson
The Night Manager
(10.4K)
The Night Manager
by John le Carré

About BookQuoters

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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.