That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness of writers. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
It is essential to naturalist doctrine that literature, to be good, must, finally, be the author's experience worked out literally. — 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
Novels, except as aids to masturbation, play no part in contemporary life. — 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
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
Most writers write books that they wouldn't read. I ought to know; I've done it myself. — 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
Lonely children often have imaginary playmates but I was never lonely; rather, I was solitary, and wanted no company at all other… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Writers who teach tend to prefer literary theory to literature and tenure to all else. Writers who do not teach prefer the… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
What is in question is a kind of book reviewing which seems to be more and more popular: the loose putting down… — 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
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 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
No one reads novels anymore. And I don't see the situation improving. People prefer video games, reality TV, and films. There are… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
“…the American reader cannot bear a surprise. He knows that this is the greatest country on earth…and evidence to the contrary is… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
People are worse educated than they used to be. Certainly they are not very interested in reading books, as opposed to watching… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
You will be favorable to Burr, and so must fail, because the American reader cannot bear a surprise. He knows that this… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
“In general, [. . .] novel-theorists have nothing very urgent or interesting to say about literature. Why then do they write when… — 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
Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
These little books I write, such as The End of Freedom, about the post-9/11 political climate in the United States, sell in… — 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
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 Image
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 Image
“It is curious how little interested we are in the sexual desires of those who do not attract us.” — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
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 Image
Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
![“In general, [. . .] novel-theorists have nothing very urgent or interesting to say about literature. Why then do they write when they have nothing to say? Because the ambitious teacher can only rise in the academic bureaucracy by writing at complicated length about writing that has already been…” quote by Gore Vidal](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/100/gore-vidal-466_books_in-general-novel-theorists-have-nothing_1611583.jpg)
