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Gore Vidal Quotes
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Eugene Louis "Gore" Vidal was an American writer and public intellectual known for his patrician manner, epigrammatic wit, and polished style of writing.

He was born to a political family; his maternal grandfather, Thomas Pryor Gore, served as United States senator from Oklahoma . He was a Democratic Party politician who twice sought elected office; first to the United States House of Representatives , then to the U.S. Senate .

As a political commentator and essayist, Vidal's principal subject was the history of the United States and its society, especially how the militaristic foreign policy reduced the country to a decadent empire. His political and cultural essays were published in The Nation, the New Statesman, the New York Review of Books, and Esquire magazines. As a public intellectual, Gore Vidal's topical debates on sex, politics, and religion with other intellectuals and writers occasionally turned into quarrels with the likes of William F. Buckley Jr. and Norman Mailer. As such, and because he thought all men and women are potentially bisexual, Vidal rejected the adjectives "homosexual" and "heterosexual" when used as nouns, as inherently false terms used to classify and control people in society.

As a novelist Vidal explored the nature of corruption in public and private life. His polished and erudite style of narration readily evoked the time and place of his stories, and perceptively delineated the psychology of his characters. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , offended the literary, political, and moral sensibilities of conservative book reviewers, with a dispassionately presented male homosexual relationship. In the historical novel genre, Vidal re-created in Julian the imperial world of Julian the Apostate , the Roman emperor who used general religious toleration to re-establish pagan polytheism to counter the political subversion of Christian monotheism. In the genre of social satire, Myra Breckinridge explores the mutability of gender role and sexual orientation as being social constructs established by social mores. In Burr and Lincoln , the protagonist is presented as "A Man of the People" and as "A Man" in a narrative exploration of how the public and private facets of personality affect the national politics of the U.S.

✵ 3. October 1925 – 31. July 2012
Gore Vidal photo
Gore Vidal: 163   quotes 4   likes

Gore Vidal Quotes

“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

“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

“Nonprofit status is what created the Bible Belt. The tax code brought religion back to this country.”

Gore Vidal

2000s, What I've Learned (2008)

Religion , Country

“That peculiarly American religion, President-worship.”

Gore Vidal

"President and Mrs. U.S. Grant" (1975)
1970s, Homage to Daniel Shays : Collected Essays (1972), Matters of Fact and Fiction : Essays 1973 - 1976 (1978)

Religion

“We have ceased to be a nation under law but instead a homeland where the withered Bill of Rights, like a dead trumpet vine, clings to our pseudo-Roman columns.”

Gore Vidal

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

Law , Dead

“I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.”

Gore Vidal

TV interview with David Frost and quoted in The Sunday Times Magazine 16 September 1973 http://books.google.com/books?id=4cl5c4T9LWkC&lpg=PA754&q=%22I'm+all+for+bringing+back+the+birch+but+only+between+consenting+adults%22&pg=PA754#v=onepage
1970s

“Men are odd. If they cannot be first, they don't in the least mind being last.”

Gore Vidal

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 8

Men

“What is going on here is a deliberate revision by Current not only of Lincoln but of himself in order to serve the saint in the 1980s as opposed to the saint at earlier times when black were still colored, having only just stopped being Negroes. In colored and Negro days the saint might have wanted them out of the country, as he did. But in the age of Martin Luther King even the most covertly racist of school boards must agree that a saint like Abraham Lincoln could never have wanted a single black person to leave freedom’s land much less bravery’s home. So all the hagiographers are redoing their plaster images and anyone who draws attention to the discrepancy between their own past crudities and their current falsities is a very bad person indeed, and not a scholar, and probably a communist as well.”

Gore Vidal

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

Age , School , Color , Home

“One can never rely on the great keeping one's letters; and should those letters vanish, one is apt to be remembered only as the mysterious half of a dialogue to be reconstructed in the vaguest way from the surviving (and sometimes lesser!) half of the exchange.”

Gore Vidal

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

Way

“We are all so simple at heart that become unfathomable to one another.”

Gore Vidal

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

Heart

“They already had contingency plans ready in case of terrorism, violence, whatever, which they had inherited from Clinton, who had put together some terrible legislation after Timothy McVeigh blew up the building in Oklahoma City.”

Gore Vidal

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

“The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all.”

Gore Vidal

"Love Love Love," Partisan Review (Spring 1959)
1970s, Homage to Daniel Shays : Collected Essays (1972)

“The folly of the clever is always more than that of the dull.”

Gore Vidal

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

“Celebrities are invariably celebrity-mad, just as liars always believe liars.”

Gore Vidal

Source: 1990s, Palimpsest : A Memoir (1995), Ch. 18: To Do Well What Should Not Be Done at All, p. 311

Madness

“Must one have a heart of stone to read The Ballad of Reading Gaol without laughing? (In life, practically no one ever gets to kill the thing he hates, much less loves.) And did not De Profundis plumb for all time the shallows of the most reported love affair of the past hundred years, rivalling even that of Wallis and David, its every nuance (O Bosie!) known to all, while trembling rosy lips yet form, over and over again, those doom-laden syllables The Cadogan Hotel?”

Gore Vidal

Oscar Wilde. Yet again. Why?
Opening lines to "Oscar Wilde: On the Skids Again"
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)

Love , Life , Hate , Time