Norman Mailer Quotes

You have to think you're the greatest thing since sliced bread, but you have to know that you're not.

Ever since I was a child, I have loved being the centre of attention, but similarly, I can't remember a time in my life that I haven't battled with all sorts of quandaries, fears and weaknesses.

Nobody goes, 'I'm a top 10 fighter. Well, maybe Top 15. I can beat a lot of guys'... Nobody ever says that. That's the thing with having a grasp on reality. I know I'm not the best.

A conscience is a troublesome thing at times. I woke up at 4 o'clock this morning and I spent the time feeling what a nothing I was, and wishing I was so very different. Then the morning's post brought me a letter from a friend, saying I was so this, so that - it made me really cry, I was so grateful.

I feel like I'm the best actor on the planet and I also feel like I'm a fraud. I think hubris comes from insecurity. Confidence comes in a more rooted sense; part of being confident is being able to say, "I can be really shitty," and to accept that. But also not to crumble under it.

I never come back home with the same moral character I went out with; something or other becomes unsettled where I had achieved internal peace; some one or other of the things I had put to flight reappears on the scene.

Sometimes I think I'm the craziest person on the planet.

I think I think I am Superwoman sometimes but I am not.

There's no point thinking, 'Well, my life's certainly worked out, I've got all the answers.' It would be wrong for me to say that I don't get seduced by certain things. That things don't become tempting.

If I'm honest I don't think the world would miss me if I never acted again.

Some of the best advice I was ever given was: 'Don't believe your own hype.'

I'm not great at talking about myself.

I don't know if I'm so righteous.

I don't presume to think I'm great at anything.

I'm not good at watching myself.

He who knows himself best esteems himself least.

Thinking back to those earlier days, I felt I was weak when I wasn't making movies, and then when I was, I thought I was weak as a family member.

I thought I was so much smarter than everybody. And I'm not.

I'm not that interesting of a person.

I'm certainly the last person to give advice on, well, anything.

All of my close friends are emotional train wrecks. This is what makes our lives interesting - constantly doubting ourselves, worrying, wondering if we've made a mistake. Could we have done better? Are we good people? Are we bad people?

Real life? Well, I just hope mine isn't investigated. They might find that I don't really exist - that I'm just a hologram.

It's rather difficult to think of anybody being really interested in me.

I think I have let ego get in the way sometimes - the pendulum swung pretty strongly. I was maybe a little overconfident at one point in my time, and then I went way the other way and thought I wasn't capable of anything.

I'm not so certain in life.