Norman Mailer, R.I.P.

From Of a Fire on the Moon, 1970:

All the while we had been composing our songs to the moon and driving the Indian on to the reservation, had we also been getting ready to go to the moon out of some deep recognition that we had already killed the nerve which gave life to the earth? Yet the moon by every appearance knew more about disease and the emanations of disease than the oldest leper on earth. "Of what can you dream?" said the moon. "I am battered beyond belief and you think to violate me now?"