Norman Mailer Quotes

Battles decide everything.

We have found that it is easier for men to die together on the field of battle than it is for them to live together at home in peace.

Arms on armour clashing bray'd Horrible discord, and the madding wheels Of brazen chariots rag'd: dire was the noise Of conflict.

Two armies at death-grips — that is one great army committing suicide.

And down the dunes a thousand guns lie crouched,Unseen, beside the flood -Like tigers in some Orient jungle crouchedThat wait and watch for blood.Meanwhile, through streets still echoing with trade,Walk grave and thoughtful men,Whose hands may one day wield the patriot's bladeAs lightly as the pen.

It needs but one foe to breed a war, and those who have not swords can still die upon them.

There is one hell of a difference between fighting in the ring and going to war in Vietnam.

And the next thing is that every war is going to astonish you in the way it occurred, and in the way it is carried out.

Any decent person who knows what warfare is can never go into battle with a whole heart.

In his fairy dreams of war [Thaddeus] always made conquest the sure end of his battles.

No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theater of war.

Competition is warfare. Mostly it is played by prescribed rules--there is a sort of Geneva Convention for competition--but it's thorough and often brutal.

The conversation of bullets.

The edge of the conflict swayed to and fro, with wild whirlpools and eddies. At times I saw around me more of the enemy than of my own men; gaps opening, swallowing, closing again with sharp convulsive energy. All around, a strange, mingled roar.

Victory was never in doubt. Its cost was...What was in doubt, in all our minds, was whether there would be any of us left to dedicate our cemetery at the end, or whether the last Marine would die knocking out the last Japanese gun and gunner.

There are plenty of good reasons for fighting.

Dulce bellum inexpertis. - War is lovely for those who know nothing about it.

I do not wish to shed a drop of blood, but 'I must fight the course.' Tis all that's left to me.

Oh, goodie. Let the bloodbath commence. (Zarek)

Now at last the slowly gathered, long-pent-up fury of the storm broke upon us. Four or five millions of men met each other in the first shock of the most merciless of all the wars of which record has been kept.

All history, of course, is the history of wars.

War is the usual condition of Europe.

I know that the battle scenes, as well, are quite gory and quite strong. Battle was romantic, but it was far from being easy. It's nice, in both respects, to have that color and contrast.

As peace is of all goodness, so war is an emblem, a hieroglyphic, of all misery.