The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
In writing and politicking, it's best not to think about it, just do it. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I was born a writer. When that happens, you have no choice in the matter. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I suspect that one of the reasons we create fiction is to make sex exciting. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
The first grown-up book that I read on my own was a nineteenth-century edition of 'Tales from Livy' that I'd found in… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I have begun writing what I have said I'd never write, a memoir ("I am not my own subject," I used to… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke? — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I wanted to be a politician and a movie star. But I was born a writer. If you're born that, you can't… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I write in the morning at a table, longhand on yellow legal pads, just like Nixon, when I’m doing fiction. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I sometimes think it is because they are so bad at expressing themselves verbally that writers take to pen and paper in… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Freud did some serious damage to American literature - a lot of writers began therapy in the 1940s, after which they all… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I am a born novelist, which does not happen all that often. There are people who try to write for a certain… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Constant work, constant writing and constant revision. The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
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… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
By and large, serious fiction was the work of victims who portrayed victims for an audience of victims who, it was oddly… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I started to read my first book at about the age of six. I started to write a book simultaneously. Not to… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I can't name three first-rate literary critics in the United States. I'm told there are a few hidden away at universities, but… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Between Malraux, Balzac, and Montaigne, I choose Montaigne. Montaigne will survive all the others, because the essay, meaning direct communication between the… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I find in most novels no imagination at all. They seem to think the highest form of the novel is to write… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I was taught to read by my grandmother. Central to her method was a tale of unnatural love called 'The Duck and… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
The most interesting thing about writing is the way that it obliterates time. Three hours seem like three minutes. Then there is… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
That famous writer’s block is a myth as far as I’m concerned. I think bad writers must have a great difficulty writing.… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that stillness without which literature cannot… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I don't think contemporary writers spend a lot of time reading each other. Particularly writers of the same nationality. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I never reread a text until I have finished the first draft. Otherwise it's too discouraging. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
In America, the race goes to the loud, the solemn, the hustler. If you think you're a great writer, you must say… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Class is the most difficult subject for American writers to deal with as it is the most difficult for the English to… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
The most interesting thing about writing is the way that it obliterates time. Three hours seem like three minutes. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I am an obsessive rewriter, doing one draft and then another and another, usually five. In a way, I have nothing to… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
You hear all this whining going on, 'Where are our great writers?' The thing I might feel doleful about is: 'Where are… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Ideally, the writer needs no audience other than the few who understand that it is immodest and greedy to want more. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I’ve always said, ‘I have nothing to say, only to add.’ And it’s with each addition that the writing gets done. The… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party...and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit… — Gore Vidal Copy Share
Many people in the United States happen to believe that United States policy is wrong in Vietnam and the Vietcong are correct in wanting… — Gore Vidal Copy Share
“It is curious how little interested we are in the sexual desires of those who do not attract us.” — Gore Vidal Copy Share
This separation was absolute in our original Republic. But the sky-godders do not give up easily. In the 1950s they actually got the phrase… — Gore Vidal Copy Share
The oligarchs think that the people are both dangerous and stupid. Their point is moot. But we do know that the oligarchs are a… — Gore Vidal Copy Share
As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying… — Gore Vidal Copy Share
Rome ... at its most decadent, had never thought of hiring an actor to go through the motions of being an emperor while the… — Gore Vidal Copy Share
History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true. — Gore Vidal Copy Share
The malady of civilized man is his knowledge of death. The good artist, like the wise man, addresses himself to life and invests with… — Gore Vidal Copy Share
Sex is a continuum. You go through different phases along life's way... and if you don't, you've been sort of cheated. — Gore Vidal Copy Share
All I want is that Americans still be able to read the alphabet in a hundred years. I am not very ambitious. — Gore Vidal Copy Share
I do not admire 'the people,' as such. No one really does. Their folk wisdom is usually false, their instincts predatory. Even their sense… — Gore Vidal Copy Share
“One of the problems of a society as tightly controlled as ours is that we get so little information about what those of our… — Gore Vidal Copy Share
