“A political convention is after all not a meeting of a corporation's board of directors; it is a fiesta, a carnival, a pig-rooting, horse-snorting, band-playing, voice-screaming medieval get-together of greed, practical lust, compromised idealism, career-advancement, meeting, feud, vendetta, conciliation, of rabble-rousers, fist fights (as it used to be), embraces, drunks (again as it used to be) and collective rivers of animal sweat.”

— Norman Mailer , book The Presidential Papers

The Presidential Papers (1963)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A political convention is after all not a meeting of a corporation's board of directors; it is a fiesta, a carnival, a …" by Norman Mailer?

Norman Mailer 165

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

Related quotes

“I used to get called a horse face. And so I decided to embrace the horse and make it my spirit animal…And now…the horse is a huge part of my symbolism.”

Alaska Thunderfuck 5000 (1985) American Drag queen

Advocate interview (2015)
Context: I used to get called a horse face. And so I decided to embrace the horse and make it my spirit animal…And now…the horse is a huge part of my symbolism. I gain a lot of power and strength from the horse.

“It (objection to a machine that could think) was the hook used by the rabble rousers, whose monopoly of moral interpretation might be challenged.”

Mark Clifton book They'd Rather Be Right

Source: They'd Rather Be Right (1954), p. 18.

“I've got the sickest vendetta when it comes to the cheddar… You play with my paper, you're going to meet my Beretta… She looks good, but I know she's after my cheddar.”

50 Cent (1975) American rapper, actor, businessman, investor and television producer

Wanksta
Song lyrics, No Mercy, No Fear (2002)

“That’s what makes us who we are. And just as we meet our responsibilities as individuals, we must be prepared to meet them as nations. Because we live in a world in which our ideals are going to be challenged again and again by forces that would drag us back into conflict or corruption. We can’t count on others to rise to meet those tests.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Address to European Youth (March 2014)
Context: In the end, the success of our ideals comes down to us -- including the example of our own lives, our own societies. We know that there will always be intolerance. But instead of fearing the immigrant, we can welcome him. We can insist on policies that benefit the many, not just the few; that an age of globalization and dizzying change opens the door of opportunity to the marginalized, and not just a privileged few. Instead of targeting our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, we can use our laws to protect their rights. Instead of defining ourselves in opposition to others, we can affirm the aspirations that we hold in common. That’s what will make America strong. That’s what will make Europe strong. That’s what makes us who we are. And just as we meet our responsibilities as individuals, we must be prepared to meet them as nations. Because we live in a world in which our ideals are going to be challenged again and again by forces that would drag us back into conflict or corruption. We can’t count on others to rise to meet those tests.

“Does political correctness have a good side? Yes, it does, for it makes us re-examine attitudes, and that is always useful. The trouble is that, as with all popular movements, the lunatic fringe so quickly ceases to be a fringe; the tail begins to wag the dog. For every woman or man who is quietly and sensibly using the idea to look carefully at our assumptions, there are twenty rabble-rousers whose real motive is a desire for power over others. The fact that they see themselves as antiracists or feminists or whatever does not make them any less rabble-rousers.”

Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer

"Unexamined Mental Attitudes Left Behind By Communism" http://www.dorislessing.org/unexamined.html, in Our Country, Our Culture - The Politics of Political Correctness (1994), Partisan Review Press, edited by Edith Kurzweil and William Philips