“How many different photographs do we have of Norman Mailer? Suppose we had only five painted portraits of him, like the five Joshua Reynolds did of Dr. Johnson? Would Mailer’s greatness seem more singular? Would Dr. Johnson’s uniqueness suffer from various replications of his likeness in photographs?”

“How many different photographs do we have of Norman Mailer? Suppose we had only five painted portraits of him, like the five Joshua Reynolds did of Dr. Johnson? Would Mailer’s greatness seem more singular? Would Dr. Johnson’s uniqueness suffer from various replications of his likeness in photographs?”

— Carl Rollyson