Norman Mailer Quotes

I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on. But routinely when I finish a book, I think, "What will I do? Where will I get an idea?" And a kind of low-level panic sets in. And then eventually something happens. I don't know. If I knew how it happened I would repeat the process, but I don't know - something just occurs to me.

I've never had a writer's block, but still I think: 'Is it going to happen this time?' You never know what you're going to get; you just put your fingers on the keys and hope.

Sometimes I think that novelists suffer from P.C.S.: Perpetual Childhood Syndrome.

Anybody who tells you they're not scared when starting a new book project is a very good liar.

I hate writing. I so intensely hate writing - I cannot tell you how much. The moment I am at the end of one project I have the idea that I didn't really succeed in telling what I wanted to tell, that I need a new project - it's an absolute nightmare. But my whole economy of writing is in fact based on an obsessional ritual to avoid the actual act of writing.

I was nervous about writing Slow Regard.

The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don't have the time to read reviews.

Not-writing is a good deal worse than writing.

If I start writing a song and you try to have a conversation with me, you're a bad person.

Editing while you're writing is like strangling the baby in the crib.

I will probably write an hour a day and spend eight hours a day biting my knuckle and worrying about not writing.

Perhaps, it is just as well to be rash and foolish for a while. If writers were too wise, perhaps no books would be written at all. It might be better to ask yourself "Why?" afterwards than before. Anyway, the force from somewhere in Space which commands you to write in the first place, gives you no choice. You take up the pen when you are told, and write what is commanded. There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.

Writing is inherently scary.

When I'm writing I just think there's only the page and me and nobody else.

Whatever I'm reading at the moment seems to influence whatever I'm writing.

I don't even subscribe to writer's block being a truthful thing. I've had writer's laziness quite often. But I think it's all about sitting down and facing down the blank page and doing it, and I've always been ok at that.

Never regret what you don't write.

I am not - thank heavens - one of those 'driven' writers who spend a fortnight buckled with empty fright over an untouched page only to wake at two in the morning feverish with paragraphs.

If you want to be a writer, just write. There's no magic to it.

Writers divide into those who write biting their nails and those who don't. Some writers write licking their finger.

When I sit at that typewriter, I have to be frightened of what I'm trying to do. I'm frightened by my own belief that I can actually get a story down on paper.

A writer who isn't writing is asking for trouble.

I don't believe in writer's block. Think about it - when you were blocked in college and had to write a paper, didn't it always manage to fix itself the night before the paper was due? Writer's block is having too much time on your hands.

When you're in the throes of writing, I find, the lessons you've casually imparted to others are not in the forefront of your mind. Which may be good or bad. Probably both.

I don't believe in writer's block or waiting for inspiration. If you're a writer, you sit down and write.