Norman Mailer Quotes

On the ridge where the great artist moves forward, every step is an adventure, an extreme risk. In that risk, however, and only there, lays the freedom of Art.

I wonder if real art comes when you build the thing that they don't have a prize for yet.

There's no one on the island telling them they're not good enough, so they just go ahead and sing and paint and write.

Today we haven't the heart to expel the painters and poets from society because we refuse to admit to ourselves that there is any danger in keeping them in our midst.

Art reaches its greatest peak when devoid of self-consciousness. Freedom discovers man the moment he loses concern over what impression he is making or about to make.

I try to remember that the job - as well as the plight, and the unexpected joy - of the artist is to embrace uncertainty, to be sharpened and honed by it.

The only pictures worth making are the ones that are playing with fire.

I would say to any artist: Don't be repressed in your work, dare to experiment, consider any urge, if in a new direction all the better.

Creative risks will always outweigh technical mistakes.

Who but a brazen crazy person would go one-on-one with blank paper or canvas armed with nothing but ideas?

Poets and painters have the power to dare, I mean to dare to do whatever they may approve of.

Hollywood people don't want to be embarrassed by being involved with someone who isn't happening and cool at the time. But I never made the movies for the critics; I've done the best I could with the material and the directors and the actors I had. But the thing that's really exciting is that once I do that one project that's different, that stands out, everyone's gonna be watching.

I do not know if you bridle your pen, but when my pencil moves, it is necesary to let it go, or - crash!... nothing more.

Art is never chaste. It ought to be forbidden to ignorant innocents, never allowed into contact with those not sufficiently prepared. Yes, art is dangerous. Where it is chaste, it is not art.

It's such an extraordinary supple medium that you never do quite know what paint will do.

There's a point where you find yourself tiptoeing as an artist, and then you know that you're in the wrong place.

Risk is what separates the artist from the artisan.

When you feel that you can't fight it, you just go for it. When it comes to the arts, passion should always trump common sense.

For me, making a movie is kind of like vomiting. Not that film is like vomit, but more like this mass of ideas and thoughts that you have and just have to put them out there. It's not even about making perfect sense - it's more about making perfect nonsense. I don't do too much soul-searching or self-analysis. I just enjoy making things.

The key to attempting to create art in some aspect is also knowing that it will turn some people off.

Conventional wisdom can get us into so much trouble, especially as artists.

There's a tacit agreement between myself and the audience that I will entertain them when they buy their ticket, and I've been the one that has screwed that up. Once in while I indulge myself and try something else, and I keep my fingers crossed that it will come out good and there'll be enough people who will enjoy it, but that doesn't often happen.

... the great artists ... do not want security, egoistic or materialistic.

My favourite film-maker west of the English Channel is not English - but to me doesn't seem American either - David Lynch - a curious American-European film-maker. He has - against odds - achieved what we want to achieve here. He takes great risks with a strong personal voice and adequate funds and space to exercise it. I thought Blue Velvet was a masterpiece.