Gore Vidal: Trending quotes (page 8)

Gore Vidal trending quotes. Read the latest quotes in collection
Gore Vidal: 326   quotes 4   likes

“I have begun writing what I have said I'd never write, a memoir ("I am not my own subject," I used to say with icy superiority).”

Gore Vidal

Preface http://www.threepennyreview.com/samples/vidal_su95.html
1990s, The City and the Pillar and Seven Early Stories (1995)

“For reasons that I leave to a higher psychiatry, Jr. wanted a war in Iraq…. Jr. is really pretty vague, you know. He just wanted to go… "Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! We gotta stand tall, ya know? We can't cut and run, yeah, ya know what I mean." We've had bad presidents in the past, but we've never had a G-- D--d fool!”

Gore Vidal

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

War , Fools , Past

“At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice.”

Gore Vidal

"Sex and the Law," Partisan Review (Summer 1965)
1970s, Homage to Daniel Shays : Collected Essays (1972)

“…for ferocity there is nothing on Earth equal a Christian bishop hunting "heresy", as they call any opinion contrary to their own.”

Gore Vidal

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 1, Priscus to Libanius, Athens March 380

“Constantinople has no past; only a noisy present and a splendid future, if the auguries are to be believed.”

Gore Vidal

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

Past , Future

“The rhetoric of hate is often most effective when couched in the idiom of love.”

Gore Vidal

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 6

Love , Hate

“The last best hope on earth, two trillion dollars in debt, is spinning out of control, and all we can do is stare at a flickering cathode-ray tube as Ollie "answers" questions on TV while the press, resolutely irrelevant as ever, asks politicians if they have committed adultery. From V-J Day 1945 to this has been, my fellow countrymen, a perfect nightmare.”

Gore Vidal

"Ollie" (1987) [Ollie = Oliver North ]
1980s, At Home (1988)

Hope , Question , Perfection

“I say, they don't have to conspire, because they all think alike. The president of General Motors and the president of Chase Manhattan Bank really are not going to disagree much on anything, nor would the editor of the New York Times disagree with them. They all tend to think quite alike, otherwise they would not be in those jobs.”

Gore Vidal

After being asked "Does someone as sophisticated as you are submit yourself to the conspiracy theory of history?""
1980s, At The David Susskind Show (1980)

Thinking , Time

“My father had a deep and lifelong contempt for politicians in general ("They tell lies," he used to say with wonder, "even when they don't have to").”

Gore Vidal

"On Flying" (1985)
1980s, At Home (1988)

“There is something about a bureaucrat that does not like a poem.”

Gore Vidal

Preface to Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship http://books.google.com/books?id=LXFbAAAAMAAJ&q="There+is+something+about+a+bureaucrat+that+does+not+like+a+poem" (1969)
Preface to Sex, Death, and Money http://books.google.com/books?id=54JBAAAAIAAJ&q="There+is+something+about+a+bureaucrat+that+does+not+like+a+poem" (1969)
1960s

“Everything's wrong on Wikipedia.”

Gore Vidal

2000s, What I've Learned (2008)

“Books always cost more in those cities where they are least read!”

Gore Vidal

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

Books , Reading

“I complain about the United States not being Athens. I certainly say we are a very good Roman republic, and the lies are based upon the most advanced techniques of advertising, which is the only art form my country has ever created — the television commercial — and we sell soap and presidents in the same fashion. Once a country is habituated to liars, it takes generations to bring the truth back.”

Gore Vidal

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

Truth , Art , Fashion , Country

“You cannot get through the density of the propaganda with which the American people, through the dreaded media, have been filled and the horrible public educational system we have for the average person. It's just grotesque.”

Gore Vidal

On American Altruism http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=338
2000s, What I've Learned (2008), Gore Vidal's America (2009)

People , Education , Personality

“There was more of a flow to my output of writing in the past, certainly. Having no contemporaries left means you cannot say, "Well, so-and-so will like this," which you do when you're younger. You realize there is no so-and-so anymore. You are your own so-and-so. There is a bleak side to it.”

Gore Vidal

2000s, What I've Learned (2008)

Past

“The reason no one has yet been able to come up with a good word to describe the homosexualist (sometimes known as gay, fag, queer, etc.) is because he does not exist. The human race is divided into male and female. Many human beings enjoy sexual relations with their own sex, many don't; many respond to both. This plurality is the fact of our nature and not worth fretting about.”

Gore Vidal

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

Sex , Nature

“Constantine was never a true Galilean; he merely used Christianity to extend his dominion over the world. He was a shrewd professional soldier, badly educated and not in the least interested in philosophy, though some perverse taste in him was hugely satisfied by doctrinal disputes; the mad haggling of bishops fascinated him.”

Gore Vidal

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

World , Education , Madness

“By and large, serious fiction was the work of victims who portrayed victims for an audience of victims who, it was oddly assumed, would want to see their lives realistically portrayed.”

Gore Vidal book Lincoln

Source: 1990s, Screening History (1992), Ch. 3: Lincoln, p. 78

“Lonely children often have imaginary playmates but I was never lonely; rather, I was solitary, and wanted no company at all other than books and movies, and my own imagination.”

Gore Vidal

Source: 1990s, Screening History (1992), Ch. 1: The Prince and the Pauper, p. 23

Children , Books , Imagination

“Envy is the central fact of American life.”

Gore Vidal

"Gore Vidal," interview by Gerald Clarke (1974), The Paris Review Interviews: Writers at Work, 5th series (1981)
1970s

Life , Envy