“There's a detachment that you need as a writer. And as a young man, I probably had more detachment than I have today.”

— Norman Mailer

Interview for French TV (1998)
Context: There's a detachment that you need as a writer. And as a young man, I probably had more detachment than I have today. So that part of me was just looking at the battlefield, and it was certainly full of horrors. There was a lieutenant with us and a driver and another enlisted man like myself. And I think they were shocked profoundly.
I just thought — this is a cold and cruel thing to say, but it's the way a writer is — I thought, "Oh, this is good." Not that it was good that all these people are dead. But "Oh, it's so good for writing." There was a sense of, "This can be used."

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Norman Mailer 165

American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film m… 1923–2007

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