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Gore Vidal Quotes - Page 15

All Quotes Advertising Age Alcohol Altruism Army Art Atheism Atheist Belief Business Character Children Choices Conspiracy Constitution Country Critics Culture Cynicism Democracy Dying Earth Energy Envy Evidence Evil Failing Genius Giving Gossip Greed Hate Home House Inspirational Islam Language Latin Liberty Literature Love Lying Memories Metaphor Pain Past Pleasure Politics Prejudice Prohibition Purpose Reading Reality Religion Running Sarcasm Stupidity Talent Truman War Winning Worship Writing Youth

In matters of faith, inconvenient evidence is always suppressed while contradictions go unnoticed.

In matters of faith, inconvenient evidence is always suppressed while contradictions go unnoticed.

Matter, Contradiction, Evidence

Gore Vidal (1991). “A view from the diners club: essays 1987-1991”

What matters finally is not the world's judgment of oneself but one's own judgment of the world.... Any writer who lacks this final arrogance will not survive very long in America.

America, What Matters, Long

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

I don't see us winning the war. We have made enemies of one billion Muslims.

War, Winning, Enemy

Only a country that is based upon an extremely primitive religion, which is Christianity, I am a devoted enemy of monotheism in all of its forms, could have come with a categorizing of people as one thing or the other.

Country, People, Enemy

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

People in my situation get to read about themselves whether they want to or not. It's generally wrong. Or oversimplified - which is sometimes useful.

People, Want, Sometimes

"Gore Vidal: What I've Learned". Interview with Mike Sager, www.esquire.com. August 1, 2012.

Since the individual's desire to dominate his environment is not a desirable trait in a society which every day grows more and more confining, the average man must take to daydreaming.

Men, Average, Desire

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

Obviously I'm in favor of protecting the rights of everybody: gay, black, women, what have you, American Indians.

Gay, Rights, Black

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

My family helped start [this country], we've been in political life ... since the 1690s, and I have a very possessive sense about this country.

Country, Political, My Family

I would be literally patrician in the sense that the senators in ancient Rome were called conscript fathers, paters, from which comes the word patrician. So if you come from a senatorial family, you are literally patrician in that sense, but that doesn't mean that you couldn't be Billy Carter, you know, of recent memory.

Memories, Father, Mean

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

The most powerful country in the world is on its way back to the Stone Age. They say, "We were elected by the gods to govern the planet." But the truth is that what counts is getting hold of the last oil reserves. Instead of finding alternative energy sources, we try to subjugate entire regions of the world. People do not understand that by doing this, the country is going to absolute ruin.

Country, Powerful, People

Source: www.guernicamag.com

Vitriolic is a needless and malign attack on something, excessive attack on something. It is a rather pointless thing to do.

Pointless Things, Things To Do, Pointless

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

The oligarchs think that the people are both dangerous and stupid. Their point is moot. But we do know that the oligarchs are a good deal more dangerous to the polity than the people at large.

Stupid, Thinking, People

Gore Vidal (2004). “Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia”, p.156, CLAIRVIEW BOOKS

Many people in the United States happen to believe that United States policy is wrong in Vietnam and the Vietcong are correct in wanting to organize their country in their own way politically. This happens to be pretty much the opinion of western Europe and the other parts of the world.

Country, Believe, Europe

Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

It used to be the custom in this country that when you had made a career and were mature in judgment, you went to the Senate to give something back t the Republic. The idea that at age 25 you go out and buy a blow dryer and starting running for office is not what the founders had in mind

Running, Country, Blow

Truman Capote has made lying an art. A minor art.

Art, Lying, Truman

"Can They Stand the Heat?The Art of the Insult" by Mary Blume, International Herald Tribune, www.nytimes.com. January 3, 1998.

Then die. We must all do that. But die, as they say, game.

Games, Dies

Gore Vidal (2011). “Burr: A Novel”, p.616, Vintage

The true confessors have been aware that not only is life mostly failure, but that in one's failure or pettiness or wrongness exists the living drama of the self.

Drama, Self, Has Beens

Gore Vidal, Donald Weise (1999). “Gore Vidal: Sexually Speaking, Collected Sex Writings”

Nonprofit status is what created the Bible Belt. The tax code brought religion back to this country.

Country, Nonprofits, Belts

"Gore Vidal: What I've Learned". Interview with Mike Sager, www.esquire.com. August 1, 2012.

You can only have a war with another country. You can't have a war with bad temper or a war against paranoids.

Country, War, Temper

"Gore Vidal on the Media and the American People". Interview with David Barsamian, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. August 1, 2012.

A huge number of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. You have a people that don't know anything about the rest of the world, and you have leaders who lie to them, lie to them, and lie to them.

Lying, Believe, Numbers

"Gore Vidal on the Media and the American People". Interview with David Barsamian, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. August 1, 2012.

The period of Prohibition - called the noble experiment - brought on the greatest breakdown of law and order the United States has known until today. I think there is a lesson here. Do not regulate the private morals of people. Do not tell them what they can take or not take. Because if you do, they will become angry and antisocial and they will get what they want from criminals who are able to work in perfect freedom because they have paid off the police.

Thinking, Order, Law

Gore Vidal (1978). “Matters of fact and of fiction: essays, 1973-1976”, Vintage

The only absolute attainment is absolute abandonment.

Abandonment, Attainment, Absolutes

Gore Vidal (2002). “Creation: a novel”, Doubleday Books

Vitriolic really is personal. I am vitriolic. I am savage.

Savages

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

The British are absolutely hung up on class, and whenever they start to really - class for the English is like sex for Americans: They start to shake all over when the subject comes up.

Sex, Class, British

I come from the highest class of all. I am a third-generation celebrity.

Class, Generations, Thirds

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

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