“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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“It's amazing how much power a smile holds. It's contagious and brightens people's day. It's also the most powerful camouflage. For that person who seems to have it all together is merely masking the pain of drowning tears. Don't be so quick to assume.”
― Brittany Burgunder, quote from Safety in Numbers: From 56 to 221 Pounds, My Battle with Eating Disorders
“To become really good at something, we need to build a habit of paying attention while doing the boring practice stuff. The hard part is keeping the focus on how to make the small changes, the improvements in what we already know. These are the small steps that bring us closer to perfection. A life of excellence, therefore, is a life of paying attention and a life of deliberate, continuous change. The need for continuous change is at the center of the idea of the Excellence Habit, and it also might be the hardest one to accept.”
― Vlad Zachary, quote from The Excellence Habit - How Small Changes In Our Mindset Can Make A Big Difference In Our Lives: For All Who Feel Stuck
“You know how they say revenge is best served up cold? I'd say it's best not served up at all. Revenge is a great motivator, but it doesn't help achieve the desired results. I've seen guys lose buddies, then go off half-cocked, piss fuel running through their veins. Things never turned out well.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Rumble
“As a general rule—to which I have seen no exceptions—tigers are responsible for all kills that take place in daylight, and leopards are responsible for all kills that take place in the dark. Both animals are seminocturnal forest-dwellers, have much the same habits, employ similar methods of killing, and both are capable of carrying their human victims for long distances. It would be natural, therefore, to expect them to hunt at the same hours; and that they do not do so is due to the difference in courage of the two animals. When”
― Jim Corbett, quote from Man-Eaters of Kumaon
“It’s time to take that leap and be what he believes is something achievable. Finally shed the weakness old Willow wore as a cloak of protection and allow my determination to be stronger and to be all the armor I need to protect myself.”
― Harper Sloan, quote from Perfectly Imperfect
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AngelfireBookQuoters 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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