Gore Vidal Quotes

262 quotes in 3183 categories

• I was taught to read by my grandmother. Central to her method was a tale of unnatural love called 'The Duck and the Kangaroo'. Then,…
• Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild.
• A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is ability to articulate human relationships.
• Ideally, the writer needs no audience other than the few who understand that it is immodest and greedy to want more.
• The fool is often oblivious of his own gaucherie.
• Terrorism is a direct response to the crimes our government has committed against foreigners (besides which, the actual terrorists are within our own government)
• 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."
• For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.
• Christianity is such a silly religion.
• In a nation that has developed to a high art advertising, the creator who refuses to advertise himself is immediately suspected of having no product…
• The most interesting thing about writing is the way that it obliterates time. Three hours seem like three minutes.
• Country is run by... financial powers & corporate interests [who] send their lawyers to Congress to make laws so that they don't have to pay…
• The word 'radical' derives from the Latin word for root. Therefore, if you want to get to the root of anything you must be radical.…
• What is a political party but a conspiracy?
• I do not admire 'the people,' as such. No one really does. Their folk wisdom is usually false, their instincts predatory. Even their sense of…
• To bring into the world an unwanted human being is as antisocial an act as murder.
• It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy's edge.…
• Eisenhower's career demonstrated how it is possible to fool all the people all the time...'I may be stupid,' he once said at a press conference,…
• If most men and women were forced to rely upon physical charm to attract lovers, their sexual lives would be not only meager but in…
• Young people are more hopeful at a certain age than adults, but I suspect that's glandular. As for children, I keep as far from them…

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