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Gore Vidal Quotes - Page 13

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I'm a true reactionary. Like all patricians, I'd like to restore the original republic, which we lost 40 years ago when Harry Truman imposed the national security state on us, which has kept us at war, hot or cold, for

I'm a true reactionary. Like all patricians, I'd like to restore the original republic, which we lost 40 years ago when Harry Truman imposed the national security state on us, which has kept us at war, hot or cold, for almost half a century, and it's got us $4 trillion into debt.

War, Years, Harry Truman

"Fresh Air Remembers Writer And Critic Gore Vidal". www.npr.org. August 2, 2012.

The whole point to American journalism is what ought to be true is true. Since I ought to be arrogant, impressed with my social position, overwhelmed by my beauty, therefore I am.

Arrogant, Overwhelmed, Journalism

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

Age bothers everybody. I was never narcissistic about my looks, but people thought that I should be so therefore I was.

People, Age, Looks

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

In Southern Europe, we have, of course, very bad governments.

Government, Europe, Southern

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, no matter how suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true.

Birthday, Believe, Exercise

Encounter Dec. 1967, "French Letters: Theories of the New Novel"

That loyal retainer of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the American president.

President, Manhattan, Loyal

Gore Vidal (2004). “Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia”, p.103, CLAIRVIEW BOOKS

I might become an ascetic, live in India. A little rice is about the best I can do now.

India, Littles, Might

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

I have no social position and I stay away from what is known as society as much as possible.

Social, Position, Known

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

People like to re-invent you, according to cliché. There are a lot of stores about me that really apply only to Capote or Mailer or somebody else. Everything is a mish mash.

People, Stores

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

We have a great deal to learn from Scandinavia and a great deal to be alarmed at from the Mediterranean.

Scandinavia, Deals

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

Love and hate are so confused in your savage minds and the vibrations of the one are so very like those of the other that I can't always distinguish. You see, we neither love nor hate in my world. We simply have hobbies.

Love, Hate, Confused

To a man, ornithologists are tall, slender, and bearded so that they can stand motionless for hours, imitating kindly trees, as they watch for birds.

Men, Bird, Tree

Gore Vidal (1987). “Armageddon?: essays 1983-1987”, Andre Deutsch Ltd

Come to me and show me a small cancer and I'll tell you you've got a small cancer that should be cut out. That's realism but in America it's called cynicism.

Cancer, Cutting, America

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

I have been asked whether I wish to nominate a successor, an inheritor, a dauphin or delfino. I have decided to name Christopher Hitchens.

Names, Wish, Has Beens

"A life in feuds: how Gore Vidal gripped a nation" by Jay Parini, www.theguardian.com. August 14, 2015.

As one gets older, litigation replaces sex.

Sex

"The Moronic Inferno". Book by Martin Amis, 1987.

Precocious talents mature slowly if at all.

Talent, Mature, Precocious

Gore Vidal (1982). “The second American revolution and other essays (1976-1982)”, Random House Inc

Nothing that Shakespeare ever invented was to equal Lincoln's invention of himself and, in the process, us.

Invention, Process, Equal

Gore Vidal (1988). “At home: essays, 1982-1988”, Random House Inc

We're supposed to procreate and society, god knows, is ferocious on the subject. Heterosexuality is considered such a great and natural good that you have to execute people and put them in prison if they don't practice this glorious act.

Heterosexuality Is, Practice, People

"American psyche". www.independent.co.uk. October 7, 2000.

I have begun writing what I have said I'd never write, a memoir ("I am not my own subject," I used to say with icy superiority).

Writing, Icy, Used

Gore Vidal (2002). “The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000”, p.143, Vintage

I Must warn you, Iris, that I'm not a believer. And though I'm sure that the revelations of other men must be a source of infinite satisfaction to them, individually, I shouldn't for one second be so presumptuous as to make a choice among the many thousands of recorded revelations of truth, accepting one at the expense of all the others: I might so easily choose wrong and get into eternal trouble. And you must admit that the selection is wide, and dangerous to the amateur.

Men, Choices, Atheism

This separation was absolute in our original Republic. But the sky-godders do not give up easily. In the 1950s they actually got the phrase In God We Trust onto the currency, in direct violation of the First Amendment.

Giving Up, Sky, Religion

The worst that can be said about pornography is that it leads not to anti-social acts but to the reading of more pornography

Reading, Social, Said

I'm not for real revolutions, because they always bring you the opposite of what you want. You very seldom get what you want if you have a violent revolution.

Real, Opposites, Want

Source: www.counterpunch.org

Contrary to vulgar legend the lives of great ballerinas are not entirely given up to a few minutes of graceful movement every night followed by champagne drunk out of their toeshoes till dawn, in the company of financiers ... no, most of their time is spent in filthy rehearsal halls, inhaling dust, or else in class, daily, year in year out, practicing, practicing even after they are already prima ballerinas.

Night, Dust, Years

Gore Vidal (2011). “Death in the Fifth Position”, p.77, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

I’ve always said, ‘I have nothing to say, only to add.’ And it’s with each addition that the writing gets done. The first draft of anything is really just a track.

Writing, Track, Add

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