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Gore Vidal Quotes - Page 5

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

It is curious how often one prefers his enemies to his friends.

It is curious how often one prefers his enemies to his friends.

Enemy, Curious

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

The fool is often oblivious of his own gaucherie.

Stupidity, Fool, Oblivious

First coffee, then a bowel movement. Then the Muse joins me.

Coffee, Movement, Firsts

Gore Vidal, Richard Peabody, Lucinda Ebersole (2005). “Conversations with Gore Vidal”, p.59, Univ. Press of Mississippi

Big oil, big steel, big agriculture avoid the open marketplace. Big corporations fix prices among themselves and thus drive out of business the small entrepreneur. Also, in their conglomerate form, the huge corporations have begun to challenge the very legitimacy of the state.

Oil, Agriculture, Entrepreneur

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

Those who have not undergone minor disasters are usually being held in reserve for something major

Disaster, Minors, Reserves

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

Nothing human is finally calculable; even to ourselves we are strange.

Strange, Humans

FaceBook post by Gore Vidal from Sep 06, 2014

Although drugs are immoral and must be kept from the young, thousands of schools pressure parents to give the drug Ritalin to any lively child who may, sensibly, show signs of boredom in his classroom. Ritalin renders the child docile if not comatose. Side effects? "Stunted growth, facial tics, agitation and aggression, insomnia, appetite loss, headaches, stomach pains and seizures." Marijuana would be far less harmful.

Children, Pain, School

"The Last Empire" by Gore Vidal, www.nytimes.com. November 1998.

Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine.

War, Machines, Constitution

"America First? America Last? America at Last?". Lowell Lecture, Harvard University, April 20, 1992.

Since there is no system of public education, the great majority of my fellow citizens is frighteningly ignorant. They have no idea where Iraq is. They accept as the gospel whatever the government tells them. Good grief, any other normal country would have been against the Iraq war! But we live in an abnormal country, governed by experts in deceptive advertising.

Country, War, Grief

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

There's no such thing as a war against terrorism. It's idiotic. These are slogans. These are lies. It's advertising, which is the only art form we ever invented and developed.

Art, Lying, War

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

Because there is no cosmic point to the life that each of us perceives on this distant bit of dust at galaxy's edge, all the more reason for us to maintain in proper balance what we have here. Because there is nothing else. Nothing. This is it. And quite enough, all in all.

Dust, Balance, Reason

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

One is sorry one could not have taken both branches of the road. But we were not allotted multiple selves.

Sorry, Taken, Self

Since nothing is free, to each his price.

GORE VIDAL (1964). “JULIAN”

In the town of Ravella, where I have a house, when the Supreme Court said that an act of sodomy, as they describe it, could not be committed between a man and his wife, the entire square burst into laughter.

Laughter, Men, Squares

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

Fifty percent of people won't vote, and fifty percent don't read newspapers. I hope it's the same fifty percent.

People, Political, Fifty

As Brooks Adams put it, the sole problem of our ruling class is whether to coerce or to bribe the powerless majority.

Class, Majority, Problem

Gore Vidal (2004). “Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia”, p.45, CLAIRVIEW BOOKS

The creation of a work of art, like an act of love, is our one small 'yes' at the center of a vast 'no.'

Art, Love Is, Creation

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

Rome ... at its most decadent, had never thought of hiring an actor to go through the motions of being an emperor while the Praetorian Guard ruled.

Rome, Political, Actors

Gore Vidal (1998). “The American presidency”, Common Courage Pr

Religions sprang up among men to deal with the sometimes terrifying aspects of existence, to make sense out of the senseless, to explain things we find inexplicable.

Men, Religion, Sometimes

I assume that the point of American democracy is you can express any point of view you want.

Views, Democracy, Want

Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

I’m not sentimental about anything. Life flows by, and you flow with it or you don’t. Move on and move out.

Death, Moving, Dying

"For Gore Vidal, A Last, Long Look From the Heights" by Joseph Giovannini, www.nytimes.com. August 26, 2004.

Andy Warhol is the only genius I've ever known with an IQ of 60.

Genius, Literature, Warhol

"Gore Vidal quotes: 26 of the best", www.theguardian.com. August 1, 2012.

Eisenhower managed to begin the Vietnam war by not following his normal instinct of staying out of mischief. In his memoirs, he tells us why we didn't honor the Geneva accords and hold elections in Vietnam: because some 80 percent of the country would have voted for Ho Chi Minh. This is very candid. The sort of thing one might have found in Stalin'smemoirs, had he not made ghosts even of ghosts.

Country, War, Honor

Life will be wonderful when men no longer fear dying. When the last superstitions are thrown out and we meet death with the same equanimity as life. No longer will children's minds be twisted by evil gods whose fantastic origin is in those barbaric tribes who feared death and lightning, who feared life. That's it: life is the villain to to those who preach reward in death, through grace and eternal bliss, or through dark revenge.

Children, Revenge, Dark

The more money an American accumulates, the less interesting he becomes.

Money, Interesting, More Money

"Gore Vidal quotes: 26 of the best", www.theguardian.com. August 1, 2012.

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