A Quote by Ken Kesey

Me and Norman Mailer have talked about how hard it is in America to get better. Especially at writing.

Ken Kesey

Quote Topics

About America Better Get Get Better Hard How Me Norman Talked Writing

Quote Author

Ken Kesey
American - Novelist
September 17, 1935 - November 10, 2001

It's always an interesting question of what was it like as Norman Mailer's son because I could easily turn it back and say what's it like not to. I didn't always realize my dad was Norman Mailer. I always knew he was Dad, and then I forget the exact age when it dawned on me that, you know, he is actually someone who affects the public consciousness of the time. It was amazing. I mean he was a rock star and brilliant and kind and funny and generous and scary when he needed to be and, you know, hard as a father.

John Buffalo Mailer

How could you not love Norman Mailer? He was a total chauvinist, but also so vulnerable.

Gloria Steinem

My father, Norman Mailer, expected a lot from us and he really pushed us and you know one of his favorite lines was, "If you think I'm being hard on you, wait until life hits you because life is a hell of a lot tougher than I am." And I took everything he said to heart. He taught me how to write, which was scary and intimidating and hard, but ultimately one of the biggest gifts I could have ever asked for.

John Buffalo Mailer

If I'd found out that Norman Mailer liked me. I'd have killed myself.

Ray Bradbury

When interviewing for a job, tell the editor how you love to report. How your passion is gathering information. Do not mention how you want to be a writer, use the word 'prose,' or that deep down you have a sinking suspicion you are the next Norman Mailer.

Michael Hastings

I once looked like Norman Mailer in a picture with bad lighting.

Danielle Steel

Norman Mailer decocts matters of the first philosophical magnitude from an examination of his own ordure, and I am not talking about his books.

William F. Buckley, Jr.

I think too much is known about me already. I think biographical information can get in the way of the reading experience. The interchange between the reader and the work. For example, I know far too much about Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut. Because I know as much as I do about their personal lives, I can't read their work without this interjecting itself. So if I had it to do over, I'd probably go the way of J.D. Salinger or Thomas Pynchon. And just stay out of it altogether and let all the focus be on the work itself and not on me.

Tom Robbins

In my campaign I hardly ever talked about what's happening in Washington D.C. I talked about how we're going to fix the damn roads, how we clean up drinking water, and ensure people get access to the skills they need to get good paying jobs.

Gretchen Whitmer

Norman Mailer loved women so much. I mean probably more than anything in the world he loved women. He got put into a position where he was kind of seen as the anti-feminist, although he was for the feminist movement. He just didn't want people to get consumed with the idea that this was going to be much better. He said, "Look, women should be treated equally and fairly."

John Buffalo Mailer

In fiction, there happens to be a long history of creative engagement with marginality, with the very human components of society that others don't want to think about, from writers such as Dostoyevsky, Baudelaire, and Rimbaud to Genet and Sarrazin and right on up to Norman Mailer.

Rachel Kushner

My high-school papers, my college-application essays, read like Norman Mailer packed in a crunchy-peanut-butter sandwich.

James Wolcott

What had brought me to New York in the autumn of 1972 was a letter of recommendation written by Norman Mailer, the author of 'The Naked and the Dead' and American literature's leading heavyweight contender, to Dan Wolf, the delphic editor of 'The Village Voice.'

James Wolcott

There's no lack of writers writing novels in America, about America. Therefore, it seems to me it would be wasteful for me to add to that huge number of people writing here when there are so few people writing about somewhere else.

Chinua Achebe

The interesting thing was we never talked about pottery. Bernard [Leach] talked about social issues; he talked about the world political situation, he talked about the economy, he talked about all kinds of things.