Gore Vidal: Trending quotes (page 5)

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Gore Vidal: 326   quotes 4   likes

“On the throne of the world, any delusion becomes fact.”

Gore Vidal

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 12

World

“Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine.”

Gore Vidal

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

War

“Nothing that Shakespeare ever invented was to equal Lincoln's invention of himself and, in the process, us.”

Gore Vidal

"Lincoln and the Priests of Academe"
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)

“The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved — Judaism, Christianity, Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal — God is the Omnipotent Father — hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates. The sky-god is a jealous god, of course. He requires total obedience from everyone on earth, as he is in place not for just one tribe but for all creation. Those who would reject him must be converted or killed for their own good. Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose.”

Gore Vidal

"America First? America Last? America at Last?" https://archive.is/20121212151230/www.dce.harvard.edu/pubs/lowell/gvidal.html, Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992)
1990s

Women , God , Age , 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 worth selling.”

Gore Vidal

"William Dean Howells" (1983)
1980s, At Home (1988)

Art

“Vengeance must end somewhere, and what better place to stop than at the prince?”

Gore Vidal

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 2

“The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country — and we haven't seen them since.”

Gore Vidal

"The State of the Union" (1975)
1970s, Homage to Daniel Shays : Collected Essays (1972), Matters of Fact and Fiction : Essays 1973 - 1976 (1978)

People , Country

“It is one thing to use text to illustrate a point one is making, but quite another to quote merely to demonstrate the excellence of one's memory.”

Gore Vidal

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

Quotes , Memory

“Yo, peep. This me name be Gore Vidal. I is spitting rhymes about early history. Why homies give props to Uzis, not books? Ain't nothing but a mystery, aight.”

Gore Vidal

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

Books , History

“Current is also outraged by a reference to Lincoln's bowels, whose 'frequency,' he tells us, 'cannot be documented.' But, of course, they can. 'Truth-teller' Herndon tells us that Lincoln was chronically constipated and depended on a laxative called bluemass. Since saints do not have bowels, Current finds all this sacrilegious; hence 'wrong.”

Gore Vidal

"Lincoln and the Priests of Academe"
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)

Truth , Dependency

“You think of the Republican Party as a party, like the British Conservative Party - well it isn't! I don't say that the British Conservative Party is much better, I'm only saying the Republican Party is a mindset. They love war! They love money! They're out to hang on through all the connections that they have, through their various operatives.”

Gore Vidal

On the Republican Party http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD0p-wfCARk&feature=youtu.be&t=46s
2000s, What I've Learned (2008), Gore Vidal's America (2009)

Love , Money , War , Thinking

“In fact, the French - who read and theorise the most - became so addicted to political experiment that in the two centuries since our own rather drab revolution they have exuberantly produced one Directory, one Consulate, two empires, three restorations of the monarchy, and five republics. That's what happens when you take writing too seriously.”

Gore Vidal

"Lincoln and the Priests of Academe"
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)

Reading

“World events are the work of individuals whose motives are often frivolous, even casual.”

Gore Vidal

"The Twelve Caesars"
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)

World , Motivation

“You hear all this whining going on, "Where are our great writers?" The thing I might feel doleful about is: Where are the readers?”

Gore Vidal

2000s, What I've Learned (2008)

Feeling

“Class is the most difficult subject for American writers to deal with as it is the most difficult for the English to avoid.”

Gore Vidal

"Dawn Powell: The American Writer" (1987)
1980s, At Home (1988)

“The founding fathers were not interested in democracy, in fact, in a country with 3 1/4 million people, which is about what we were at the time of the separation from England, only 700,000 people could vote — white males of property. So it's never been terribly democratic. …and they put together a constitution which would protect property for all time. No nonsense about democracy!”

Gore Vidal

2010s, "Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia" (2013)

People , Democracy , Time , Country

“Americans are farcical when it comes to force majeure and money!
Two things that they worship.
You can't expect a democracy from a society like this.”

Gore Vidal

2010s, "Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia" (2013)

Money , Democracy

“The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western World. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity — much less dissent.”

Gore Vidal

"Cue the Green God, Ted" (1991).
1990s, A View from the Diner's Club (1991)

World , Country

“The late Mr. [Carl] Sandburg was a public performer of the first rank ("Ker-oh-seen!" he crooned in one of the first TV pitches for the jet-engine — ole banjo on his knee, white hair mussed by the jet-stream), a poet of the second rank (who can ever forget that feline-footed fog?) and a biographer of awesome badness.”

Gore Vidal

"First Note on Abraham Lincoln"
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)

Forgetting

“At least when the Emperor Justinian, a sky-god man, decided to outlaw sodomy, he had to come up with a good practical reason, which he did. It is well known, Justinian declared, that buggery is a principal cause of earthquakes, and so must be prohibited. But our sky-godders, always eager to hate, still quote Leviticus, as if that looney text had anything useful to say about anything except, perhaps, the inadvisability of eating shellfish in the Jerusalem area.”

Gore Vidal

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

God , Hate , Quotes