If you're not part of that club, as I certainly am not, you are not presidential. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
If satire is to be effective, the audience must be aware of the thing satirized. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
When anyone says to me, 'Can you keep a secret?' I say, 'Why should I, if you can't?' — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
If the splitter of hairs has a sharp enough knife, the fact of life itself can be chopped into nothing. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I am a correctionist. If something is wrong in society, it must be fixed. At least one should try to fix it. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I'm not for real revolutions, because they always bring you the opposite of what you want. You very seldom get what you… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Great critics do not explicate a text; they describe it and then report on what they have described, if the description itself… — 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
Every four years the naive half who vote are encouraged to believe that if we can elect a really nice man or… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
If you are at the mercy of what they call print interviews and the mercy of people who write about you, they… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
If you want to rise in politics in the United States, there is one subject you must stay away from, and that… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Don't ever make the mistake with people like me thinking we are looking for heroes. There aren't any and if there were,… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
The word 'radical' derives from the Latin word for root. Therefore, if you want to get to the root of anything you… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I went to Europe to live in 1961. I'd never have written Julian if it hadn't been for the sequestered life that… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
If you're a critic of the rulers of the United States, you are either demonized, or you are trivialized by the press,… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
It is notable how little empathy is cultivated or valued in our society. I put this down to our traditional racism and… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Since no one can ever know for certain whether or not his own view of life is the correct one, it is… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
We're supposed to procreate and society, god knows, is ferocious on the subject. Heterosexuality is considered such a great and natural good… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
At a certain age, you have to live near good medical care — if, that is, you're going to continue. You always… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Every four years the naive half who vote are encouraged to believe that if we can elect a really nice man or… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
The last best hope of earth, two trillion dollars in debt, is spinning out of control, and all we can do is… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Although drugs are immoral and must be kept from the young, thousands of schools pressure parents to give the drug Ritalin to… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
At least when the Emperor Justinian, a sky-god man, decided to outlaw sodomy, he had to come up with a good practical… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
The period of Prohibition - called the noble experiment - brought on the greatest breakdown of law and order the United States… — 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
If [drugs] didn't exist, our government would have to invent them, the better to enact laws aimed at keeping the citizens "sinless… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Drugs. If they did not exist our governors would have invented them in order to prohibit them and so make much of… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
We were to be forever at war with somebody. We were going to fight communism everywhere on earth even if it didn't… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I would be literally patrician in the sense that the senators in ancient Rome were called conscript fathers, paters, from which comes… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
[ New York ] is a place that worships incompetence particularly if it's combined with energy and paranoid self-confidence. Only in a… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I like the distance that Europe gives me. Also if I stayed in America I'd be a full-time politician and have no… — 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
![“If [drugs] didn't exist, our government would have to invent them, the better to enact laws aimed at keeping the citizens "sinless and obedient."” quote by Gore Vidal](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/2ee/gore-vidal-466_citizens_if-drugs-didn-t-exist-our-government-wou_3228324.jpg)
![“[ New York ] is a place that worships incompetence particularly if it's combined with energy and paranoid self-confidence. Only in a city like New York could Truman Capote have made it, or John Simon.” quote by Gore Vidal](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/95c/gore-vidal-466_cities_new-york-is-a-place-that-worships-incomp_2112370.jpg)
