To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy.
GORE VIDALIn the writing of novels, there is the problem of how to shape a narrative.
More Gore Vidal Quotes
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I am a novelist turned temporary adventurer, and I chose to write television, movies and plays for much the same reason that Henry Morgan selected the Spanish Main for his peculiar – and not dissimilar – sphere of operations.
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What I am is something unbearable for the world of journalism and the world of cliches. I’m a realist.
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As for civil liberties, any one who is not vigilant may one day find himself living, if not in a police state, at least in a police city.
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Primarily, I am a prose writer with axes to grind, and the theatre is a good place to do the grinding in. I prefer comedy to ‘serious’ drama because I believe one can get the ax sharper on the comedic stone.
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Between fourteen and nineteen, I must have begun and abandoned six novels.
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Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.
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At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation and prejudice.
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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.
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I was like everyone else when Obama was elected – optimistic.
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The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.
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The unfed mind devours itself.
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Since we have literally targeted our enemies, the Pentagon assumes that, sooner or later, rogues will take out our cities, presumably from spaceships.
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In character, as it were, the writer settles for an impression of what happened rather than creating the sense of the thing happening.
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One is sorry one could not have taken both branches of the road. But we were not allotted multiple selves.
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The media can’t get anything straight.
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Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.
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As for my support for Obama, remember that I was brought up in Washington. It was an all-black city when I was a kid. And I’ve always been very pro-African-American – or whatever phrase we now use.
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I hate nobody.
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In classical times, it was a capital offense to speculate upon the hour of a king’s death or upon the identity of his successor.
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I never wanted to be a writer. I mean, that’s the last thing I wanted.
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I am only at home in the present.
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What is in question is a kind of book reviewing which seems to be more and more popular: the loose putting down of opinions as though they were facts, and the treating of facts as though they were opinions.
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There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices.
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It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
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The American high school graduate is two years behind his English, French or German counterpart; in Alabama, God knows how far behind.
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In the writing of novels, there is the problem of how to shape a narrative.
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