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
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
How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself. — 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
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
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
Novels, except as aids to masturbation, play no part in contemporary life. — 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
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
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
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
“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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Most writers write books that they wouldn't read. I ought to know; I've done it myself. — 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
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 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
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
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
