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Gore Vidal Quotes about Writing

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Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.

Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.

Sarcastic, Book, Writing

FaceBook post by Gore Vidal from Nov 18, 2010

The brain that doesn't feed itself, eats itself.

Writing, Brain

Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 players. ... I have 10 or so, and thats a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.

Writing, Player, Casting

The most interesting thing about writing is the way that it obliterates time. Three hours seem like three minutes.

Writing, Interesting, Three

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

Write what you know will always be excellent advice for those who ought not to write at all. Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!

Writing, Thinking, Advice

Gore Vidal (1999). “The Essential Gore Vidal”, Random House Incorporated

Write something, even if it's just a suicide note.

Suicide, Writing, Notes

Gore Vidal, Richard Peabody, Lucinda Ebersole (2005). “Conversations with Gore Vidal”, p.17, Univ. Press of Mississippi

You can't really succeed with a novel anyway; they're too big. It's like city planning. You can't plan a perfect city because there's too much going on that you can't take into account. You can, however, write a perfect sentence now and then. I have.

Writing, Cities, Perfect

Gore Vidal, Richard Peabody, Lucinda Ebersole (2005). “Conversations with Gore Vidal”, p.137, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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.

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

Morning, Writing, Yellow

I suspect that one of the reasons we create fiction is to make sex exciting.

Sex, Writing, Fiction

FaceBook post by Gore Vidal from Sep 17, 2011

Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.

Country, Business, Writing

I sometimes think it is because they are so bad at expressing themselves verbally that writers take to pen and paper in the first place

Writing, Thinking, Paper

Most writers write books that they wouldn't read. I ought to know; I've done it myself.

Book, Writing, Done

I have no television to go on so I get a lot of writing done. That's my substitute for television.

Writing, Done, Goes On

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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

Writing, Born, Company

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

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

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.

Constant work, constant writing and constant revision. The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge. What he takes in he takes in normally the way any person takes in experience. But it is what is done with it in his mind, if he is a real writer, that makes his art.

Art, Real, Writing

In writing and politicking, it's best not to think about it, just do it.

Writing, Thinking, Just Do It

I like the distance that Europe gives me. Also if I stayed in America I'd be a full-time politician and have no time for writing, which is why I went to Europe to live in 1961.

Distance, Writing, Europe

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

I write in different styles because I hear different voices in my head. It would be boring to have always the same voice, point of view.

Writing, Views, Voice

I have begun writing what I have said I'd never write, a memoir ("I am not my own subject," I used to say with icy superiority).

Writing, Icy, Used

Gore Vidal (2002). “The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000”, p.143, Vintage

I’ve always said, ‘I have nothing to say, only to add.’ And it’s with each addition that the writing gets done. The first draft of anything is really just a track.

Writing, Track, Add

Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!

Writing, Thinking, Imagine

Gore Vidal (1999). “The Essential Gore Vidal”, Random House Incorporated

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