In writing and politicking, it's best not to think about it, just do it. — 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
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
These are two opposing forces, and whenever I am in active politics, I stop writing. And when I'm writing, I don't politick. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
The first TV babies are now writing with a TV mind that has no attention span at all. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
The New York Times is the worst in that hardly anybody can write English over there. Most of it reads like slight… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Write what you know will always be excellent advice for those who ought not to write at all. Write what you think,… — 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
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
Fortunately, our audiences are used to a kind of boredom in the theatre, and if the writer is skillful, he will flatter… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
You can't be both a writer and a politician, at least not a good writer. A writer must always tell the truth… — 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
“Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 players. … I have 10 or so,… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Baum (Writer of THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ) was a true educator, and those who read his Oz books are often made… — 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 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
What matters finally is not the world's judgment of oneself but one's own judgment of the world… Any writer who lacks 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
A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is ability to articulate human relationships. — 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
Sex was a great no-no for Americans, so that was obviously an attraction to the writers, and since sex is a great… — 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
There was more of a flow to my output of writing in the past, certainly. Having no contemporaries left means you cannot… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
A writer represents his family history. My grandfather was a senator and my father served in the Roosevelt administration. In other words,… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Writing when you are already very old means you have lived through the endings of so many things, you are more aware… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Most writers are middle-class and are the children of doctors or lawyers. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge. — 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 have never been particularly impressed by the self centered musings of my fellow writers. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith. — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
I have no television to go on so I get a lot of writing done. That's my substitute for television. — 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
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
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)
