"What ruins most writers of talent is that they don't get enough experience, so their novels tend to develop a certain paranoid perfection.
For example, how much of the words of
the history that's made around us is conspiracy, how much is simple
fuckups? You have to know the world to get some idea of that."
"You can't change a single word. The
best short stories are built on this premise."
"Some of my best ideas come because i
haven't fixed my novel's future in concrete. Once you know your end,
it's disastrous to get a new idea."
"The act of writing is a mistery, and
the more you labor at it, the more you become aware after a lifetime
of such activity that is not answers which are being offered so much
as a greater appreciation of the literary mysteries."
"Nothing lifts our horizons like a piece
of unexpected luck or the generosity of the gods."
Norman Mailer, The Spooky Art - Some Thoughts on Writing
(Random House / New York, 2003)