Gore Vidal: Doing

Gore Vidal was American writer. Explore interesting quotes on doing.
Gore Vidal: 326 quotes5 likes

“The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttress; you need a religion if you are terrified of death.”

Gore Vidal

“Well, you have to work out what it is. They are a little splinter. They can't summon many voters at any given time. They are a minority of a minority of a minority. They have everybody buffaloed because the great corporations like them and pay money to their candidates for sheriff and senator. And they're playing big-time politics. Yes, indeed. But the average person doesn't like them. You know, any time I want to get applause — and I lecture across America in state after state after state — when I fear things are getting a little low, I always say, “And another thing: Let us tax all the religions,” I bring down the goddamn house with that. And any politician would if he had sense enough to do it. The people don't like their tax exemption.”

Gore Vidal

On the religious right in America http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=31&amp;Itemid=74&amp;jumival=342 <br class="br">2000s, What I&#x27;ve Learned (2008), Gore Vidal&#x27;s America (2009)

“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&amp;task=view&amp;id=31&amp;Itemid=74&amp;jumival=342 <br class="br">2000s, What I&#x27;ve Learned (2008), Gore Vidal&#x27;s America (2009)

“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

“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)

“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)

“I am at heart a propagandist, a tremendous hater, a tiresome nag, complacently positive that there is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.”

Gore Vidal

"Writing Plays for Television" in New World Writing, #10 (1956)
1970s, Homage to Daniel Shays : Collected Essays (1972)

“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)

“By definition a bore is predictable. if you think you know in advance what a man is apt to say or do, you are not apt to be disagreeably surprised by him.”

Gore Vidal

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

“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)

“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)

“Those who seem to think that the Bush administration had something to do with 9-11… I can prove that they didn't. They are totally incompetent! 9-11 was a brilliantly executed strike on the United States. I can't imagine anybody… I can't even imagine… Can you imagine Cheney, mumbling around, orchestrating something like that?”

Gore Vidal

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