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Gore Vidal Quotes - Page 16

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I have been on the cover of Time magazine. My father was on the cover of Time, and my grandfather was on the cover of Time.

I have been on the cover of Time magazine. My father was on the cover of Time, and my grandfather was on the cover of Time.

Father, Magazines, Time Magazine

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

If you are at the mercy of what they call print interviews and the mercy of people who write about you, they can always tell lies.

Lying, Writing, People

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

I was brought up to believe that what is out-of-doors should stay there and not be encouraged in any way.

Believe, Doors, Way

Gore Vidal (2011). “Empire: A Novel”, p.293, Vintage

Television is now so desperately hungry for material that they're scraping the top of the barrel.

Funny, Television, Literature

"This column will change your life: Couch potatoes v creators" by Oliver Burkeman, August 20, 2010.

All Americans born between 1890 and 1945 wanted to be movie stars.

Movie, Stars, Born

In large Victorian houses with many rooms and heavy doors, the occupants could be mysterious and exciting to one another in a way that those who live in rackety developments can never hope to be. Not even the lust of a Lord Byron could survive the fact of Levittown.

Doors, House, Lust

Gore Vidal (1969). “Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship. (1. Ed.)”, Boston : Little, Brown

It is natural for men to want power. But to seek power actively takes a temperament baffling to both the simple and the wise. The simple cannot fathom how any man would dare presume to prevail, while the wise are amazed that any reasonable man would want the world, assuming he could get it.

Wise, Men, Power

For half a century photography has been the "art form" of the untalented. Obviously some pictures are more satisfactory than others, but where is credit due? To the designer of the camera? to the finger on the button? to the law of averages?

Photography, Art, Law

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

When the Presidential virus attacks the system there is a tendency for the patient in his fever to move from the Right or the Left to the Center where the curative votes are.

Moving, Presidential, Viruses

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

I am a correctionist. If something is wrong in society, it must be fixed. At least one should try to fix it.

Trying, Reform, Should

Writers who teach tend to prefer literary theory to literature and tenure to all else. Writers who do not teach prefer the contemplation of Careers to art of any kind.

Art, Writing, Literary Theory

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

Great critics do not explicate a text; they describe it and then report on what they have described, if the description itself is not the criticism.

Criticism, Description, Critics

Gore Vidal (2002). “The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000”, p.25, Vintage

Laughing at someone else is an excellent way of learning how to laugh at oneself; and questioning what seem to be the absurd beliefs of another group is a good way of recognizing the potential absurdity of many of one's own cherished beliefs.

Sarcasm, Laughing, Way

There is hardly an American male of my generation who has not at one time or another tried to master the victory cry of the great ape as it issued from the androgynous chest of Johnny Weissmuller, to the accompaniment of thousands of arms and legs snapping during attempts to swing from tree to tree in the backyards of the Republic.

Men, Swings, Tree

Gore Vidal (1969). “Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship. (1. Ed.)”, Boston : Little, Brown

The last best hope of earth, two trillion dollars in debt, is spinning out of control, and all we can do is stare at a flickering cathode-ray tube as Ollie answers questions on TV while the press, resolutely irrelevant as ever, asks politicians if they have committed adultery. From V-J Day 1945 to this has been, my fellow countrymen, a perfect nightmare.

Two, Perfect, Lasts

"Ollie (1987)". "At Home: Essays 1982-1988". Book by Gore Vidal., 1988.

I find in most novels no imagination at all. They seem to think the highest form of the novel is to write about marriage, because that's the most important thing there is for middle-class people.

Writing, Thinking, Class

There's a lot to be said for being nouveau riche, and the Reagans mean to say it all.

Mean, Literature, Nouveau Riche

There are two things you never turn down: sex and appearing on television.

Funny, Sex, Two

Love, like a sense of humor, is now claimed by everyone even though Love, like a sense of humor, is rather more rare than not, and to most of us poor muddlers unbearable at full strength.

Love, Unbearable, Sense Of Humor

It never occurred to any Enlightenment figure in the eighteenth century that law was not preferable to man.

Men, Law, Century

Gore Vidal (1982). “Pink triangle and yellow star, and other essays (1976-1982)”

The first TV babies are now writing with a TV mind that has no attention span at all.

Baby, Writing, Mind

Of course his dust would be absorbed in other living things and to that degree at least he would exist again, though it was plain enough that the specific combination which was he would never exist again.

Atheist, Dust, Atheism

Gore Vidal (1965). “The City and the Pillar Revised: Including an Essay: Sex and the Law, and An Afterword”, New American Library of Canada

Miss Rand now tells us that what we have thought was right is really wrong. The lesson should have read: One for one and none for all.

Should Have, Missing, Lessons

The most interesting thing about writing is the way that it obliterates time. Three hours seem like three minutes. Then there is the business of surprise. I never know what is coming next. The phrase that sounds in the head changes when it appears on the page. Then I start probing it with a pen, finding new meanings. Sometimes I burst out laughing at what is happening as I twist and turn sentences. Strange business, all in all. One never gets to the end of it. That’s why I go on, I suppose. To see what the next sentences I write will be.

Writing, Laughing, Interesting

This might explain why Obama gave billions to Wall Street crooks, and dragged the Iraq and Afghan wars on and on. Happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing... We have ceased to be a nation under law but instead a homeland where the withered Bill of Rights, like a dead trumpet vine, clings to our pseudo-Roman columns.

Wall, War, Rights

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