The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.
Norman Mailer (1923-2007) American novelist, journalist, playwright, activist
(Attributed)
Quotations by:
Mailer, Norman
To blame the poor for subsisting on welfare has no justice unless we are also willing to judge every rich member of society by how productive he or she is. Taken individual by individual, it is likely that there’s more idleness and abuse of government favors among the economically privileged than among the ranks of the disadvantaged.
Norman Mailer (1923-2007) American novelist, journalist, playwright, activist
(Attributed)
To blame the poor for subsisting on welfare has no justice unless we are also willing to judge every rich member of society by how productive he or she is. Taken individual by individual, it is likely that there’s more idleness and abuse of government favors among the economically privileged than among the ranks of the disadvantaged.
Norman Mailer (1923-2007) American novelist, journalist, playwright, activist
Esquire (1996)
There was that law of life, so cruel and so just, which demanded that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.
Norman Mailer (1923-2007) American novelist, journalist, playwright, activist
The Deer Park (1955)
I have some obsession with how God exists. Is He an essential god or an existential god; is He all-powerful or is He, too, an embattled existential creature who may succeed or fail in His vision?
Norman Mailer (1923-2007) American novelist, journalist, playwright, activist
Interview by Steven Marcus (1963)
In G. Plimpton, ed., Writers at Work: Third Series (1967)