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
As Kierkegaard was the first to suggest, we can never know where our prayers are likely to go nor from whom the answers will come. When we think we are nearest to God, we could be assisting the Devil.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that our understanding of faith and divine intervention is complex and uncertain.
Norman Mailer's quote reflects on the unpredictable nature of prayer and the spiritual realm. It suggests that while we may feel close to divine guidance, we could also inadvertently be aligned with negative influences. This challenges the assumption that our intentions and spiritual pursuits are straightforward and underscores the complexities of faith, morality, and the human experience.
In practice
This quote can be used in a philosophical discussion about the nature of good and evil.
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.
If you tell a true story, you can't be wrong.
The greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, to be compatible with a superstitious piety and devotion; hence it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any inference in favor of a man's morals, from the fervor or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere.
It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless appetite for applause
All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.
Ahimsa is the attribute of the soul, and therefore, to be practiced by everybody in all affairs of life. If it cannot be practiced in all departments, it has no practical value.
God has put within our lives meanings and possibilities that quite outrun the limits of mortality.
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