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
The writer can grow as a person or he can shrink. ... His curiosity, his reaction to life must not diminish. The fatal thing is to shrink, to be interested in less, sympathetic to less, desiccating to the point where life itself loses its flavor, and one’s passion for human understanding changes to weariness and distaste.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of maintaining curiosity and passion for life, warning against becoming complacent and indifferent.
Norman Mailer suggests that a writer's personal growth is closely connected to their curiosity and engagement with life. To shrink in this sense means to lose interest and empathy, which diminishes one's wealth of experience and ultimately reduces the joy and richness of life. Mailer warns that to let passion fade into weariness leads to a lifeless existence, illustrating that sustained curiosity is essential for both personal and artistic fulfillment.
Themes
CuriosityGrowthLifePassionUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a graduation speech to inspire students to remain curious throughout their lives.
More from Norman Mailer
All quotes →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.
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
Over-certified adjectives are the mark of most best-seller writing
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
Similar quotes
Don't argue about the difficulties. The difficulties will argue for themselves.
Winston ChurchillRead
Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.
Ben OkriRead
Some people like to read so many [Bible] chapters every day. I would not dissuade them from the practice, but I would rather lay my soul asoak in half a dozen verses all day than rinse my hand in several chapters. Oh, to be bathed in a text of Scripture, and to let it be sucked up in your very soul, till it saturates your heart!
Charles SpurgeonRead
Dad had a way of disarming people because he never really directly attacked them. He might attack a principle, but he never attacked the individual.
Martin Luther King IiiRead
But my lord, when we addressed this issue a few years ago, didn't you argue the other side?" He said, "That's true, but when I get more evidence I sometimes change my mind. What do you do?
John Maynard KeynesRead
Often have I sighed to measure By myself a lonely pleasure,- Sighed to think I read a book, Only read, perhaps, by me.
William WordsworthRead