
deliberately, at least — to please the other.
Review of Palimpsest by Gore Vidal, p. 279
The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000 (2001)
On his character in The Colbert Report in an interview on Larry King Live (11 October 2007) http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/larry.king.live/
Context: We worked very hard to keep him from being a jerk by keeping in mind he's well intentioned. Just poorly informed. He wants to do the right thing but has none of the tools to achieve it. Because he has no curiosity, he doesn't like to read and he won't listen anybody, except the voices in his head.
deliberately, at least — to please the other.
Review of Palimpsest by Gore Vidal, p. 279
The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000 (2001)
"Lingering Still".
Volume Two (2010)
The Golden Man (1954)
Context: "We were always afraid a mutant with superior intellectual powers would come along," Baines said reflectively. "A deeve who would be to us what we are to the great apes. Something with a bulging cranium, telepathic ability, a perfect semantic system, ultimate powers of symbolization and calculation. A development along our own path. A better human being."
"He acts by reflex," Anita said wonderingly. She had the analysis and was sitting at one of the desks studying it intently. "Reflex — like a lion. A golden lion." She pushed the tape aside, a strange expression on her face. "The lion god."
"Beast," Wisdom corrected tartly. "Blond beast, you mean."
"He runs fast," Baines said, "and that's all. No tools. He doesn't build anything or utilize anything outside himself. He just stands and waits for the right opportunity and then he runs like hell."
"This is worse than anything we've anticipated," Wisdom said. His beefy face was lead-gray. He sagged like an old man, his blunt hands trembling and uncertain. "To be replaced by an animal! Something that runs and hides. Something without a language!" He spat savagely. "That's why they weren't able to communicate with it. We wondered what kind of semantic system it had. It hasn't got any! No more ability to talk and think than a — dog."
“The educated reader knows, as he reads me, that he is listening to a fugue in four voices.”
Source: Journal of 1969, p. 134
“If one doesn't know his mistakes, he won't want to correct them.”
Nam qui peccare se nescit, corrigi non vult.
Source: Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXVIII: On travel as a cure for discontent, Line 9
1984 interview with Detective Robert Keppel (regarding the Green River Killer)