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Gore Vidal Quotes - Page 9

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By 1948, the Italians had begun to pull themselves together, demonstrating once more their astonishing ability to cope with disaster which is so perfectly balanced by their absolute inability to deal with success

By 1948, the Italians had begun to pull themselves together, demonstrating once more their astonishing ability to cope with disaster which is so perfectly balanced by their absolute inability to deal with success

Together, Inability, Disaster

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

Where there is no desire or pursuits, there is no wholeness. But there are satisfying lesser states, fragments.

Desire, States, Pursuit

Gore Vidal (1995). “Palimpsest: a memoir”

You can improve your talent, but your talent is a given, a mysterious constant. You must make it the best of its kind.

Mysterious, Talent, Kind

Now the long-feared Asiatic colossus takes its turn as world leader, and we--the white race--have become the yellow man's burden.Let us hope that he will treat us more kindly than we treated him.

Men, Race, Yellow

Gore Vidal (2004). “Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia”, p.43, CLAIRVIEW BOOKS

The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttress; you need a religion if you are terrified of death.

Punishment, Ideas, Religion

FaceBook post by Gore Vidal from Apr 07, 2015

a writer must always tell the truth (unless he's a journalist)

Telling The Truth, Journalist

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

Monotheism is easily the greatest disaster to befall the human race.

Race, Disaster, Humans

You will be favourable to Burr, and so must fail because the American reader cannot bear a surprise. He knows that this is the greatest country on earth, Washington the greatest man that ever lived, Burr the wickedest, and evidence to the contrary is not admissible. That means no inconvenient facts, no new information. If you really want the reader's attention, you must flatter him. Make his prejudices your own. Tell him things he already knows. He will love your soundness.

Country, Love You, Mean

There is no such thing as a true account of anything.

Accounts

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

It was a pity that movies and live TV left New York for Hollywood. London theater, movies, television - until (Britain's) money ran out - were always better than ours since the city was the political capital of the country, as well as the artistic and literary one. In L.A. we've always been slightly sealed off from real life. It's no accident that two of our most interesting directors, Woody Allen and Bob Altman, are more or less settled in the real world.

Country, New York, Real

Source: articles.latimes.com

I do not admire 'the people,' as such. No one really does. Their folk wisdom is usually false, their instincts predatory. Even their sense of survival - so highly developed in the individual - goes berserk in the mass. A crowd is a fool.

People, Survival, Democracy

"Views From a Window". Book by Robert J. Stanton, Gore Vidal, www.nytimes.com. 1980.

I have always regarded as a stroke of good fortune that I was not born or brought up in a small American town; they may be the backbone of the nation, but they are also the backbone of ignorance, bigotry, and boredom, all in vast quantities.

Ignorance, Boredom, May

It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy's edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create one world. Instead of one world, we have star wars, and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet's dead.

Stars, War, Long

"The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations" by Robert Andrews, Columbia University Press, (p. 861), 1993.

I like Italy. I was always at home there, it's a marvelous place to become invisible. Nobody bothers you and nobody is interested in you and I find that very good for work.

Home, Invisible, Very Good

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

We must always remember that the police are recruited from the criminal classes.

Class, Police, Criminals

"The Swimmers" by Dick Cavett, www.nytimes.com. June 3, 2007.

The ideal to which John Adams subscribed-that we would be a nation of laws, not of men-was quickly subverted when the churches forced upon everyone, through supposedly neutral and just laws, their innumerable taboos on sex, alcohol, gambling. We are now indeed a nation of laws, mostly bad and certainly antihuman.

Sex, Men, Gambling

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

Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head.

Writing, Born, Company

"Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

Southerners make good novelists: they have so many stories because they have so much family.

Novelists, Stories, Southerner

Gore Vidal, Richard Peabody, Lucinda Ebersole (2005). “Conversations with Gore Vidal”, p.96, Univ. Press of Mississippi

That famous writer’s block is a myth as far as I’m concerned. I think bad writers must have a great difficulty writing. They don’t want to do it. They have become writers out of reasons of ambition. It must be a great strain to them to make marks on a page when they really have nothing much to say, and don’t enjoy doing it. I’m not so sure what I have to say but I certainly enjoy making sentences.

Block, Writing, Ambition

FaceBook post by Gore Vidal from Aug 06, 2012

I wanted to be a politician and a movie star. But I was born a writer. If you're born that, you can't change it. You're going to do it whether you want to or not.~

Stars, Writing, Want

How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself.

Book, Ignorance, World

FaceBook post by Gore Vidal from Mar 05, 2017

History is idle gossip about a happening whose truth is lost the instant it has taken place.

Taken, Gossip, Truth Is

GORE VIDAL (1964). “JULIAN”

Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.

Writing, Alcohol, Bedtime

Paris Review Interview (1981), later quoted in "Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Fifth Series", 1981.

He's a full-fledged housewife from Kansas with all the prejudices.

Kansas, Prejudice, Insult

Christianity is such a silly religion.

Silly, Religion, Atheism

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