Gore Vidal: Trending quotes (page 4)

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“Well, the Constitution has not yet been pregnant.”

Gore Vidal

As quoted in "Jah" http://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=CB6SOQCvoIM (15 August 2004), Da Ali G Show
2000s

“Happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing.”

Gore Vidal

"The State of the Union," The Nation (13 September 2004)
2000s

Business , Learning

“In a good cause hypocrisy becomes a virtue.”

Gore Vidal

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 1, Priscus to Libanius, Antioch June 380

“I used to be able to summon up scenes at will, but now aging memory is so busy weeding its own garden that, promiscuously, it pulls up roses as well as crabgrass.”

Gore Vidal

Source: 1990s, Palimpsest : A Memoir (1995), Ch. 12: The Guest of the Blue Nuns, p. 162

Age , Business , Memory

“Are we a dream in the mind of a deity, or is each of us a separate dreamer, evoking his own reality?”

Gore Vidal

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 5

Dreams , Reality

“Apparently, "conspiracy stuff" is now shorthand for unspeakable truth.”

Gore Vidal

"The Enemy Within" https://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/EnemyWithin.html, The Observer (27 October 2002)
2000s

Truth

“Well, it's been the monopolizing of great wealth, which tends to happen in basically unjust societies and undemocratic societies. We have plenty of would-be democrats, would-be liberals, and would-be progressives. But how do you organize? The Democratic Party is a machine to get votes for its people, none of who should probably be elected to the high offices of state. That's all. The Republican Party is fundamentally crooked and might well be outlawed one of these days. Le Pen, you know, in France, who is an out-and-out fascist, the French have managed in some clever way to contain him. I mean, he's always running for president; his votes never seem to show up. I don't know how they do it, but we've got to do that with the Republican base, the religious right. We don't want them running the country. Nobody does. Certainly not the founding fathers. And I think we have to ride herd on them and make sure they do not seize the state.”

Gore Vidal

On fascism http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=342
2000s, What I've Learned (2008), Gore Vidal's America (2009)

People , Way , Thinking , Country

“I'm not a conspiracy theorist - I'm a conspiracy analyst.”

Gore Vidal

Quoted in The Guardian, by Ryszard Kapuściński, in "Vidal salon" https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/may/05/featuresreviews.guardianreview14 (5 May 2007)
2000s

“As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.”

Gore Vidal

1990s, The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (1992)

People , Time

“Despite all evidence to the contrary I do not believe humans innately cruel, but they fear change of any kind.”

Gore Vidal

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 5, Libanius

Fear , Change

“You know, I've been around the ruling class all my life, and I've been quite aware of their total contempt for the people of the country.”

Gore Vidal

On the Media http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=345
2000s, What I've Learned (2008), Gore Vidal's America (2009)

Life , People , Country

“After four centuries, Montaigne's curious genius still has that effect on his readers and, time and again, one finds in his self-portrait one's own most brilliant aperçus (the ones that somehow we forgot to write down and so forgot) restored to us in his essays—attempts—to assay—value—himself in his own time as well as, if he was on the subject, all time, if there is such a thing.”

Gore Vidal

"Montaigne"
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)

Time

“It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, however suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true.”

Gore Vidal

"French Letters: The Theory of the New Novel," http://books.google.com/books?id=U_YmAQAAIAAJ&q=%22It+is+the+spirit+of+the+age+to+believe+that+any+fact+no+matter+how+suspect+is+superior+to+any+imaginative+exercise+no+matter+how+true%22&pg=PA317#v=onepage Encounter magazine (December 1967)
"French Letters: Theories of the New Novel," http://books.google.com/books?id=T4lBAAAAIAAJ&q=%22It+is+the+spirit+of+the+age+to+believe+that+any+fact+no+matter+how+suspect+is+superior+to+any+imaginative+exercise+no+matter+how+true%22&pg=PA24#v=onepage Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship (1969)
1960s

Age , Exercises , Imagination

“Liberal' comes from the Latin liberalis, which means pertaining to a free man. In politics, to be liberal is to want to extend democracy through change and reform. One can see why the word had to be erased from our political lexicon.”

Gore Vidal

"America First? America Last? America at Last?," Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992)
1990s

Democracy , Change

“We do not, of course, write literary criticism at all now. Academe has won the battle in which Wilson fought so fiercely on the other side. Ambitious English teachers now invent systems that have nothing to do with literature or life but everything to do with those games that must be played in order for them to rise in the academic bureaucracy. Their works are empty indeed. But then, their works are not meant to be full. They are to be taught, not read. The long dialogue has broken down. Fortunately, as Flaubert pointed out, the worst thing about the present is the future. One day there will be no… But I have been asked not to give the game away. Meanwhile, I shall drop a single hint: Only construct!”

Gore Vidal

"Edmund Wilson: This Critic and This Gin and These Shoes", closing lines
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)

Life , Game , Literature , Teachers

“As one gets older, litigation replaces sex.”

Gore Vidal

Quoted in profile by Martin Amis, "Mr. Vidal: Unpatriotic Gore" (1977) in The Moronic Inferno (1987).
1970s

Sex

“Never pass up a chance to have sex or appear on television.”

Gore Vidal

Quoted by Bob Chieger, Was It Good For You, Too? (1983).
1980s

Sex , Appearance , Chance

“Actually, there is no such thing as a homosexual person, any more than there is such a thing as a heterosexual person. The words are adjectives describing sexual acts, not people. The sexual acts are entirely normal; if they were not, no one would perform them.”

Gore Vidal

"Sex Is Politics" (1979)
1980s, The Second American Revolution (1983)

People , Personality

“The malice of a true Christian attempting to destroy an opponent is something unique in the world. No other religion ever considered it necessary to destroy others because they did not share the same beliefs. At worst, another man's belief might inspire amusement or contempt—the Egyptians and their animal gods, for instance. Yet those who worshipped the Bull did not try to murder those who worshipped the Snake, or to convert them by force from Snake to Bull. No evil ever entered the world quite so vividly or on such a vast scale as Christianity did.”

Gore Vidal

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 7, Priscus

God , World , Religion , Evil

“American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.”

Gore Vidal book Two Sisters

Two Sisters: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel http://books.google.com/books?id=xnJbAAAAMAAJ&q="American+writers+want+to+be+not+good+but+great+and+so+are+neither" (1970)
1970s