A Quote by Norman Mailer
The sense of a long last night over civilization is back again.
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The sense of a long last night over civilization is back again; it has perhaps not been here so intensely in thirty years, not since the Nazis were prospering, but it is coming back.
We are close to dead. There are faces and bodies like gorged maggots on the dance floor, on the highway, in the city, in the stadium; they are a host of chemical machines who swallow the product of chemical factories, aspirin, preservatives, stimulant, relaxant, and breathe out their chemical wastes into a polluted air. The sense of a long last night over civilization is back again.
Yet another last night. The last night at home, the last night in the ghetto, the last night in the train, and, now, the last night in Buna. How much longer were our lives to be dragged out from one 'last night' to another?
In books, day breaks, and night falls. In life, night rises from the ground. The day hangs on for as long as it can, bright and eager, absolutely and positively the last guest to leave the party, while the ground darkens, oozing night around your ankles, swallowing for ever that dropped contact lens, making you miss that low catch in the gully on the last ball of the last over.
My mom used to tell me stories at night, read books to me - and I read 'em over and over and over again. And you know what I learned from that? I went back and looked at everything - Why do I like reading the same stories over and over and over again? What, was I some kind of nincompoop? No - the narrative gave me connection with my mom.
From my experience in my country, America over and over again takes itself right to the brink, it puts one foot over but it never goes over. It wakes up at the last minute and says woah, and then pulls back...
What is our death but a night's sleep? For as through sleep all weariness and faintness pass away and cease, and the powers of the spirit come back again, so that in the morning we arise fresh and strong and joyous; so at the Last Day we shall rise again as if we had only slept a night, and shall be fresh and strong.
Prongs rode again last night... You know, Harry, in a way, you did see your father last night... You found him inside yourself.
The human race is doomed to sink back farther and farther into the primitive night ere again it begins its bloody climb upward to civilization.
The object of our sojourns on earth, as apart from the gaining of experience, is but one. The loosing of ourselves from the coil of reincarnation, which, over and over again, brings us back to earth as on a coiled spring, until, having learned the last lesson of matter, leaped the last barrier, we are freed for ever from earth.
With Hairspray, we had a great experience. I always think of the last time I saw Divine: He was in the last booth in the back of the Odeon. Now every time I go in there, I look at that table. It was a wonderful night.Hairspray had been out a week; it was a hit. If I had to pick a night that was going to be the last night.
I stopped performing because I don't have the temperament of a performer. You have to want to do the same thing over and over again. Once I got it right, I didn't want to do it again. I always use the analogy of a novelist who has to read his novel in public night after night. I just didn't want to do it.
I hope we don't have to keep going back over the same territory and winning the same rights over and over again. The battle for birth control. The battle for abortion. The parity of women's health. It's very depressing to think that you win these rights, but then you have to win them again, and again, and again, and fight the same battles over and over.
If you write something in the evening or at night, look back over it the next morning. I tend to be less self-critical at night; sometimes, I've looked back at things I wrote the night before, and realized they were no good at all.
It seems disrespectful to my parents who left... to hear their story over and over again which always ends with... 'and I'll never go back as long as anyone in the Castro family is in power.' Well, what happens if you can go back? Would you want to see things?
In a sense, touring is crazy. You go city to city playing the show over and over again. But there's something magic about being in front of people, so it's not like going through the motions every night. It's a different experience.
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