Norman Mailer Quotes

Be not deceived. Revolutions do not go backward.

We have not made the Revolution, the Revolution has made us.

The seed of revolution is repression.

Revolutions are the locomotives of history. Drive them full speed ahead and keep them on the rails... .

In every revolution on Earth, consciousness came first.

Heroism means going out of bounds. In this world things must go out of bounds from time to time... No one can desire that the world continue to muddle along in every respect in the groove into which imperfect laws and even more imperfect behavior have pushed it. Without heroic intervention no Council of Nicaea, no dethronement of the Merovingians, no conquest of England, no Reformation, no revolt of the Netherlands, no free America. The thing that counts is who intervenes, how and in the name of what.

The right of the revolution is the right of the future.

Every revolution begins as consciousness because some group of people has to imagine change. You have to have the idea of change or at least have a hope before you can proceed. And that stage goes very quickly because a contagion of consciousness is within your control. But when you get to the stage of institutional change, it becomes a much slower process.

The only revolution that will change anything is a revolution of perception.

We are revolutionaries.

Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.

We talking about revolution because that's the era that you're caught in.

Revolution as an ideal concept always preserves the essential content of the original thought: sudden and lasting betterment.

Revolutions are the locomotives of history.

Give me time and I'll give you a revolution.

The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.

For me, 'revolution' simply means radical change.

Ideas have unhinged the gates of empires.

We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.

Security isn't what I hunger for. I hunger for change. I hunger for connection.

They say I'm a revolutionary, but they're all wrong.

What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.

Revolution is born as a social entity within the oppressor society.

The revolution is a torrent which sweeps aside those who resist it.