“The difference between writing a book and being on television is the difference between conceiving a child and having a baby made in a test tube.”

—  Norman Mailer

"The Siege of Mailer : Hero to Historian" in The Village Voice (21 January 1971); republished in Conversations with Norman Mailer (1988), edited by J. Michael Lennon

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 "The difference between writing a book and being on television is the difference between conceiving a child and having a…" by Norman Mailer?
Norman Mailer photo
Norman Mailer165
American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film m… 1923–2007

Related quotes

Joe Hill photo

“Already, though, she understood the difference between being a child and being an adult. The difference is when someone says he can keep the bad things away, a child believes him.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: NOS4A2

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan photo

“There is no difference between killing a baby in its mother's stomach and killing a baby after birth.”

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (1954) 12th President of Turkey from 2014

As quoted in "Turkey PM Erdogan sparks row over abortion" http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18297760, BBC (June 1, 2012)

Nick Hornby photo

“There are many differences between a baby and an I-Pod. And one of the biggest is, no ones going to mug you for your baby.”

Nick Hornby book Slam

Source: Slam

“All the difference in the world are as nothing compared to this: the difference between being you and being me. It makes the chasms between gods and men, between men and women, between dead and alive, seem almost trivial.You are you. She is someone else. Between lie the stars.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer

Source: The Lonely Dead (2004), Ch. 14

M. K. Hobson photo

“There is a difference between not understanding and being willfully obtuse.”

M. K. Hobson (1969) American writer

Source: The Hidden Goddess (2011), Chapter 18, “The Talleyrand Maneuver” (p. 275)

Dr. Seuss photo

“Ninety percent of the children’s books patronize the child and say there’s a difference between you and me, so you listen to this story. I, for some reason or another, don’t do that. I treat the child as an equal.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Ayaan Hirsi Ali photo

“There is a huge difference between being tolerant and tolerating intolerance”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali (1969) Dutch feminist, author

https://archive.is/20130704013203/www.ejpress.org/article/10660

Terry Pratchett photo

“Maybe the only significant difference between a really smart simulation and a human being was the noise they made when you punched them.”

Terry Pratchett The Long Earth

Source: The Long Earth

John Adams photo

“Education makes a greater difference between man and man, than nature has made between man and brute.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Letter to Abigail Adams (29 October 1775), published Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife, Vol. 1 (1841), ed. Charles Francis Adams, p. 72
1770s
Context: Human nature with all its infirmities and depravation is still capable of great things. It is capable of attaining to degrees of wisdom and goodness, which we have reason to believe, appear as respectable in the estimation of superior intelligences. Education makes a greater difference between man and man, than nature has made between man and brute. The virtues and powers to which men may be trained, by early education and constant discipline, are truly sublime and astonishing. Newton and Locke are examples of the deep sagacity which may be acquired by long habits of thinking and study.

Related topics