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Gore Vidal Quotes - Page 14

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A current pejorative adjective is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adective is often applied to those liberals who prefer to improve the lives of others rather

A current pejorative adjective is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adective is often applied to those "liberals" who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them. Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the hightest altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meanings of words is a very small price to pay for our vast freedom not only to conform but to consume.

Self, Concern For Others, Greed

"Screening History (Growing Up With Gore Vidal)". Book by Gore Vidal (p. 24), 1994.

American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.

Want, American Writer

'Two Sisters' (1970) p. 65

Envy is the central fact of American life.

Envy, Facts, American Life

Gore Vidal, Richard Peabody, Lucinda Ebersole (2005). “Conversations with Gore Vidal”, p.43, Univ. Press of Mississippi

The malady of civilized man is his knowledge of death. The good artist, like the wise man, addresses himself to life and invests with his private vision the deeds and thoughts of men. The creation of a work of art, like an act of love, is our one small 'yes' at the center of a vast 'no'.

Wise, Art, Love Is

Gore Vidal (2007). “Selected Essays”, Abacus Software

The hatred Americans have for their own government is pathological, if understandable. At one level it is simply thwarted greed: since our religion is making a buck, giving a part of that buck to any government is an act against nature.

Government, Giving, Hatred

"The State of the Union". Esquire Magazine, May 1975.

To hear two American men congratulating each other on being heterosexual is one of the most chilling experiences - and unique to the United States. You don't hear two Italians sitting around complimenting each other because they actually like to go to bed with women. The American is hysterical about his manhood.

Unique, Men, Two

Young people are more hopeful at a certain age than adults, but I suspect that's glandular. As for children, I keep as far from them as possible. I don't like the sight of them. The scale is all wrongs. The heads tend to be too big for the bodies, and the hands and feet are a disaster. They keep falling into things. The nakedness of their bad character! We adults have learned how to disguise our terrible character, but children, well, they are like grotesque drawings of us. They should be neither seen nor heard, and no one must make another one.

Children, Fall, Drinking

If most men and women were forced to rely upon physical charm to attract lovers, their sexual lives would be not only meager but in a youth-worshiping country like America painfully brief.

Country, Men, Rely Upon

Gore Vidal (1968). “Sex, Death, and Money”

Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!

Writing, Thinking, Imagine

Gore Vidal (1999). “The Essential Gore Vidal”, Random House Incorporated

It is astonishing to think that millions of people in my time—now, too, I suppose—actually thought that at a given moment in history two human beings had evolved to a higher state than that of all the gods that ever were or ever will be. This is titanism, as the Greeks would say. This is madness.

Thinking, Two, People

FaceBook post by Gore Vidal from Mar 09, 2012

U.S. certainly are not warlike. We don't want that. We want to make money, which I always thought was one of the most admirable things about Americans.

Want, Making Money, Admirable

The world came so close to self-destruction during my lifetime. I was serving in the American Army, in the Pacific, at the time they bombed Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, and I felt there something like a foretaste of the end of the world.

Army, Self, World

"The End of Gore Vidal". Interview with Lila Azam Zanganeh, www.guernicamag.com. August 15, 2012.

I think we're going to have to accept the fact the U.S. is off the world map. We are not a great player any longer. And when we come home - as we will have to do because we've run out of money - we will discover that Argentine debts means Argentine politics. And on that note, you can wake up in the middle of the night.

Running, Mean, Home

"Gore Vidal, Novelist of U.S. Past Sees an Empire Replacing Republic He So Admired". Interview with Robert Scheer, www.latimes.com. December 15, 1991.

I do not much care for nature, and believe that flowers belong in vases rather than loose and untidy on the ground.

Believe, Flower, Modern Life

Gore Vidal (1976). “1876: a novel”

What begins with comedy ends with comedy... in my short view of the matter.

Views, Matter, Comedy

Source: www.esquire.com

I started to read my first book at about the age of six. I started to write a book simultaneously. Not to compete, just to augment. And that's how one starts. Or I started.

Book, Writing, Age

Source: www.esquire.com

I don't think contemporary writers spend a lot of time reading each other. Particularly writers of the same nationality.

Reading, Thinking, Contemporary

Source: www.esquire.com

Sex is. There is nothing more to be done about it. Sex builds no roads, writes no novels and sex certainly gives no meaning to anything in life but itself.

Sex, Writing, Giving

Gore Vidal (1968). “Sex, Death, and Money”

Now you have people in Washington who have no interest in the country at all. They're interested in their companies, their corporations grabbing Caspian oil.

Country, Oil, People

A writer represents his family history. My grandfather was a senator and my father served in the Roosevelt administration. In other words, I grew up in politics. This is why it seemed perfectly natural to take part in the battles of my time, and to participate in the writing of the history of my country.

Country, Father, Writing

I have never been particularly impressed by the self centered musings of my fellow writers.

Self, Fellows, Musings

Instead of finding alternative energy sources, we try to subjugate entire regions of the world. People do not understand that by doing this, the United States are going to absolute ruin.

People, Trying, Energy

"The End of Gore Vidal". Interview with Lila Azam Zanganeh, www.guernicamag.com. August 15, 2012.

I am a born novelist, which does not happen all that often. There are people who try to write for a certain time, then they become Ministers of Culture under de Gaulle, and they begin living their own fictions.

Writing, People, Trying

"The End of Gore Vidal". Interview with Lila Azam Zanganeh, www.guernicamag.com. August 15, 2012.

Memory is strange. Scientifically, it is not a mechanical means of repeating something. I can think a thousand times about when I broke my leg at the age of ten, but it is never the same thing which comes to mind when I think about it. My memory of this event has never been, in reality, anything except the memory of my last memory of that event. This is why I use the image of a palimpsest - something written over something partially erased - that is what memory is for me. It's not a film you play back in exactly the same way. It's like theater, with characters who appear from time to time.

Memories, Character, Mean

"The End of Gore Vidal". Interview with Lila Azam Zanganeh, www.guernicamag.com. August 15, 2012.

I deny that there's such a thing as a gay person. I deny there's such a thing as a heterosexual person.

Gay, Deny, Persons

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

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