In character, as it were, the writer settles for an impression of what happened rather than creating the sense of the thing happening.
GORE VIDALI’m not a conspiracy theorist – I’m a conspiracy analyst.
More Gore Vidal Quotes
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Gossip is conversation about people.
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To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy.
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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.
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I’m not paranoid, no. I’m different in that I have enemies. Very real ones.
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I know a lot of the Annapolis breed.
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The unfed mind devours itself.
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A racial or religious or tribal identity is a kind of fact.
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I remember the Bond movies when I was a child. They were silent then.
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I’m always an optimist!
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If you are a Representative and want to be a Senator, you must be careful not to do anything which might upset the various forces you need to harness to get elected.
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On September 5, 1774, forty-five of the weightiest colonial men formed the First Continental Congress at Philadelphia.
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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.
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I’m all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.
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Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
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In writing and politicking, it’s best not to think about it, just do it.
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Today’s public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can’t read them either.
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In the German concentration camps, Jews wore yellow stars while homosexuals wore pink lambdas.
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Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.
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Of all recent presidents, Clinton was expected to behave the most sensibly in economic matters. He understood how the economy works. But because he had used various dodges to stay out of the Vietnam War, he came to office ill at ease with the military.
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Americans, in general, are ignorant, bigoted, and deeply unhappy with their declining incomes.
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As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.
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Every country should have at least one King Farouk.
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Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they’re both just aspirin.
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Does one ever read a politician’s books?
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In essence, Clinton’s Anti-Terrorism Act would set up a national police force, over the long-dead bodies of the founders.
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The Pentagon talks about our power to ‘overkill’ Russia ten times, twenty times, perhaps forty-eight times. For my tax money, it is sufficient to overkill them once.
GORE VIDAL