Norman Mailer Quotes

We have a new class in this country: the deserving rich. ... The deserving rich do nice things for each other. Comforting the unafflicted is something that comes naturally to them.

Millionaires are just as patriotic as poor people. The very wealthy are just as noble and patriotic as the middle class. But nothing has been asked of them in this horrendous recession. And it's time we just ask.

Britain has no divine right to be one of the richest countries in the world.

We have a lot of things we give away to people who are very, very wealthy in this country. And I'm not sure that our federal government can afford that.

I had watched for many years and seen how a few rich families held much of Argentina's wealth and power in their hands. So Peron and the government brought in an eight hour working day, sickness pay and fair wages to give poor workers a fair go .

I hear all this, you know, 'Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.' No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own - nobody.

A conservative is someone who demands a square deal for the rich.

The wealthy have a responsibility to invest in addressing inequality. This is especially true when constraints on others are so great.

I am not biased against the rich because they are rich, but the most lively people are those without money who would like to have some

Imagine what would happen if the government were to take the wealth of 200,000 of India's richest people and redistribute it amongst 2 million of India's poorest? We would hear a lot about socialist appropriation and the death of democracy. Why should taking from the rich be called appropriation and taking from the poor be called development?

The market system rewards me outlandishly for what I do, but that doesn't mean I'm any more deserving of a good life than a teacher or a doctor or someone who fights in Afghanistan.

The millionaires are a product of natural selection ... the naturally selected agents of society for certain work. They get high wages and live in luxury, but the bargain is a good one for society.

Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.

Forced to choose, the poor, like the rich, love money more than political liberty; and the only political freedom capable of enduring is one that is so pruned as to keep the rich from denuding the poor by ability or subtlety and the poor from robbing the rich by violence or votes.

People must get active; go outside; get moving. This is a crucial time. You know, massive wealth and capital haven't budged one bit, so far. We have to give it a huge push if we want to see something different in our society. We need to create mechanisms and forms of organization which reflect the needs and wants of society as a whole, not just a privileged-oligarchic class of individuals.

A poor American feels guilty at being poor, but less guilty than an American rentier who has inherited wealth but is doing nothingto increase it; what can the latter do but take to drink and psychoanalysis?

It's time to make our government work for all of us... and not just the 1%.

It's easier to ask for money from the poor than from the wealthy.

There's one other interesting thing about Western democracy. It didn't arrive at the end point that Karl Marx thought it would that wealth would become more and more concentrated in the hands of the few, that eventually the few would be killed by the many who were deprived, and that a different kind of government would then develop. What happened in Western democracy is that we began to understand that a democratic system can't work if half of the people are starving and the other half are dieting.

I've never had it so good in terms of taxes. I am paying the lowest tax rate that I've ever paid in my life. Now, that's crazy. And if you look at the Forbes 400, they are paying a lower rate, accounting payroll taxes, than their secretary or whomever around their office. On average. And so I think that actually people in my situation should be paying more tax. I think the rest of the country should be paying less.

As long as there's anybody that's poor or middle class, there will not be satisfaction that there are rich people. Not 'til we get rid of all the rich can we say we have finished the job.

Another current catch-phrase is the complaint that the nations of the world are divided into 'haves' and the 'have-nots.' Observe that the 'haves' are those who have freedom, and that it is freedom that the 'have-nots' have not.

We want the government to be controlled by all the people, not by the richest 1%. That's always been the first demand. That's a simple enough message, and I think it's pretty clear now, even though much of the media has been disingenuous in its coverage. We don't want the heads of the biggest industries to make all the decisions, because they're not for the people. They're for the corporations. Power to the people!

Abraham Lincoln was on the side of the social scientists when he said, "God must have loved the people of lower and middle socioeconomic status, because he made such a multiplicity of them.