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Gore Vidal Quotes - Page 7

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

Next to I win, I told you so are the sweetest words.

Next to "I win," "I told you so" are the sweetest words.

Winning, Smugness, Next

I suspect that our own faith in psychiatry will seem as touchingly quaint to the future as our grandparents' belief in phrenology seems now to us.

Grandparent, Phrenology, Belief

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

I'm in favor of any form of sexual relationship that gives pleasure to those involved. And I have never heard a convincing argument to the contrary.

Giving, Favors, Argument

The U.S. Bill of Rights is being steadily eroded, with two million telephone calls tapped, 30 million workers under electronic surveillance, and, says the author, countless Americans harassed by a government that wages spurious wars against drugs and terrorism.

War, Rights, Government

To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.

Evil, Greed, Mind

"Comment, July 1961" by Gore Vidal, www.esquire.com. May 19, 2008.

I liked the trichotomy, that's the only thing I ever liked.

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

"Terrorism" is a metaphor, it's an abstract noun. It's like having a war on dandruff. It's something from advertising, it's meaningless.

War, Nouns, Advertising

I have always found men quite fathomable. They look entirely to their own interest.

Men, Looks, Found

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

Always a godfather, never a god.

Gore Vidal (2013). “I Told You So: Gore Vidal Talks Politics: Interviews with Jon Wiener”, p.14, Counterpoint

Politically, of course, it's to the Right, but then the whole country is to the Right.

Country, Courses, Whole

"New Again: Gore Vidal". Interview with Emma Brown, Monique van Vooren, www.interviewmagazine.com. May 1, 2012.

All I want is that Americans still be able to read the alphabet in a hundred years. I am not very ambitious.

Years, Ambitious, Want

Writing of history is our only heuristic principle. The Germans have a word for it, einfühlen. It is the ability to experience the past in the present and to recreate it. In my books, I have tried to recreate it in the most natural way possible: History must be integrated into the story without the weight of premonition.

Book, Writing, Past

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

In the First Amendment to the Constitution, the Founders made it clear that this was not to be a sky-god nation with a national religion like that of England, from whom we had just separated. It is curious how little understood this amendment is-yes, everyone has a right to worship any god he chooses but he does not have the right to impose his beliefs on others who do not happen to share in his superstitions and taboos.

Sky, Religion, Doe

The United States is my subject, but as Hawthorne once wrote, "the United States are suited for many admirable purposes, but not to live in."

United States, Purpose, Hawthorne

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

Between Malraux, Balzac, and Montaigne, I choose Montaigne. Montaigne will survive all the others, because the essay, meaning direct communication between the writer and his reader, will outlast the novel, by at least a thousand years.

Communication, Years, Balzac

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

We're the most captive nation of slaves that ever came along. The moral timidity of the average American is quite noticeable. Everybody's afraid to be thought in any way different from everyone else.

Average, Different, Way

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

Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild.

Grandma, Grandmother, Grandchildren

I’m exactly as I appear. There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water.

Ice, Water, Cold

"Gore Vidal and the Sky God" by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., www.christianpost.com. August 7, 2012.

I was taught to read by my grandmother. Central to her method was a tale of unnatural love called 'The Duck and the Kangaroo'. Then, because my grandfather, Senator Gore, was blind, I was required early on to read grown-up books to him, mostly constitutional law and, of course, the Congressional Record. The later continence of my style is a miracle, considering those years of piping the additional remarks of Mr. Borah of Idaho.

Children, Book, Grandmother

Art is not a democracy, in fact art is the enemy of democracy

Art, Enemy, Democracy

Litigation takes the place of sex at middle age.

Sex, Age, Middle

I'm devoted to promiscuity, and always have been. I believe the more you do, the better it is for you. I'm a great health nut, and sex is, I think, absolutely marvelous for the whole system; tones you up.

Sex, Believe, Thinking

I write in the morning at a table, longhand on yellow legal pads, just like Nixon, when I’m doing fiction.

Morning, Writing, Yellow

If [drugs] didn't exist, our government would have to invent them, the better to enact laws aimed at keeping the citizens "sinless and obedient."

Government, Law, Drug

I can understand companionship. I can understand bought sex in the afternoon, but I cannot understand the love affair.

Love, Sex, Dating

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

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