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
Over-certified adjectives are the mark of most best-seller writing
Interpretation
What this quote means
Excessive use of overblown descriptors is common in popular writing.
Norman Mailer's quote highlights a tendency in best-selling literature to rely on exaggerated adjectives to draw attention and sell books. This practice can undermine the integrity of writing by prioritizing sensationalism over substance, suggesting that many commercially successful works may be less about genuine artistry and more about catering to commercial demands.
Themes
WritingLiteratureAdjectivesBest-SellersCommercial
In practice
Example use cases
During a writer's workshop, one might use this quote to illustrate the pitfalls of striving for best-seller status over authentic storytelling.
More from Norman Mailer
All quotes βI 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
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
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
When I think of the books I love, there's always a little laughter in the dark.
Zadie SmithRead
I found literary idols in Adrienne Kennedy, Nella Larsen, and Ntozake Shange, writers who'd dared to locate a sanctioned, forbidden space between white vulnerability and black invincibility.
Margo JeffersonRead
He didn't want to please his readers. He wanted to stretch them until they twanged.
Martin AmisRead
If we can't stamp out literature in the country, we can at least stop its being brought in from outside.
Evelyn WaughRead
As Faulkner says, all of us have the capacity in us for great good and for great evil, for love but also for hate. I wanted to write those kinds of complex character in a fantasy, and not just have all the good people get together to fight the bad guy.
George R. R. MartinRead
It is very difficult for a writer of my generation, if he is honest, to pretend indifference to the work of Somerset Maugham. He was always so entirely there.
Gore VidalRead