Norman Mailer Quotes

you want to write a book for so many reasons ... The main reason ... is because it will make you well-known and beloved and popular and successful and famous and respected. You also write ... to make money, but that motivation is not first on the list.

One paradox of professional writing is that books written solely for money and/or acclaim will almost never be good enough to garner either.

Also, I am driven by a wonderful muse called alimony.

My mother always said don't marry for money, divorce for money.

You can make a lot of money in this game. Just ask my ex-wives. Both of them are so rich that neither of their husbands work.

They got married, they got divorced, and half their money goes out the window.

I had a terrible time hiring rich people. It sounds funny, but the problem is when things go wrong they can ask, 'Why am I doing this?' You don't ever want anybody asking that question. You want them to say, 'I know why I'm doing it, I need the money, let's go' or whatever it is that draws them.

Married in 1983, separated in 1987, and divorced in 1988. Enough said.

King Henry VIII, who said to his lawyer, Forget the alimony, I've got a better idea. Never got a dinner!

People say, "John, what's your personal growth?" And ask "How do you grow?" And I tell them. I thought, "Why do I keep telling them, why don't I just write a book on what I call personal growth?" And that's what this [Today Matters] book is.

There was no "decision" per se to re-position myself. I simply decided that I wanted to write a book that would help people influence others.

In 2011, I announced that I was going to retire, and my agent panicked. So she says: No, no, no. You have to write a book with your husband.

The best life for a writer is the life which helps him write the best books he can.

I loathe writing. On the other hand I'm a great believer in money.

The two things I enjoy the most about writing are the first page of a book and the last. What's in between is very hard work.

Three months seems to me quite a reasonable time to complete a book, if one can get right down to it.

I discovered John Truby ten years ago when a friend told me about his screenwriting course. I studied Truby's principles for a year and -- using them -- I wrote the first draft of The Thieves of Ostia in two weeks. I go back to his teachings before each new book I write. Each time I study Truby, I learn something new.

There's that lovely thing for the first month or two of writing a new book: OK, I don't know what that character's going to do, but we'll find out later. After about three or four months you come to that bit where you've got to put some plot in before it's too late, and you have to go back and start inserting plot, and, ooh, I've left out the literature, OK, lets put some in.

The wages of sin is alimony.

I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight than a book a year, because the writer is soothed by the opiate of action, the crank by posing as a good journalist, and having an air hole. I dislike it. I do it and I am always resolving to give it up.

A literary agent is nothing but a cheap salesman (or woman); while a writer is a cheap salesman (or woman) who also has to actually write the books.

My fear is you have to be careful as a writer to not get caught up in social media and blogging, because it can start to feed into your writing time. When you are writing a book, it's such a long journey where the payoff is way at the end, sometimes years away. The payoff of the blog post is today. You get the reinforcement, comments or "likes" immediately. It's appealing. You have to be patient with the book.

Somebody said, 'Hey, there is a lull in your career. Why don't you write books about your [dyslexia]?' We are currently writing our 34th novel.

I craft everything in the beginning. I know where the characters are going before I start writing the book.

Before the Olympics, there's always been a part of me that's wanted to write a book about Women's cycling because there isn't one out there and I think there's a lot to be said.