Norman Mailer: 1923-2007

"He was a great American voice"
Joan Didion.

"He had such a compendious vision of what it meant to be alive. He had serious opinions of everything there was to have an opinion on and everything he said was so original."
William Kennedy

"He never thought the boundaries were restricted. He'd go anywhere and try anything. He was a courageous person, a great person, fully confident, with a great sense of optimism."
Gay Talese

"Each time he speaks he must become more bold, more loud, put on brighter motley and shake more foolish bells. Yet of all my contemporaries I retain the greatest affection for Norman as a force and as an artist. He is a man whose faults, though many, add to rather than subtract from the sum of his natural achievements.”
Gore Vidal

Mailer's greatest risk was to presume that writing — and writers — mattered. To argue with him was good sport. To dismiss him was to dismiss literature itself.
Hillel Italie, Associated Press.

Norman Mailer, Towering Writer With a Matching Ego, Dies at 84
New York Times