A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.
GORE VIDALWorld War II made prosperous the United States, which had been undergoing a depression for a dozen years, and made very rich those magnates and their managers who govern the republic – with many a wink – in the people’s name.
More Gore Vidal Quotes
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Boys don’t like girls around when they do boy things.
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Temperamentally, I am suspicious of belonging to anything. When I ran for office, I debated seriously whether or not to run as an independent because I was not eager to be saddled with the Democratic Party, because any party label is committing.
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Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that stillness without which literature cannot be made.
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To preserve the human race, it is now necessary to reorganize society. To this end, an Authority must be created with the power to control human population, to redistribute food, to purify air, water, soil, to re-pattern the cities.
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The greatest pleasure when I started making money was not buying cars or yachts but finding myself able to have as many freshly typed drafts as possible.
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I’m a fervent foe of water pollution, whether it is our own Hudson River or Philadelphia’s tap water.
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I’m all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.
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You cannot deprive somebody of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, because that is a right – constitutional right.
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American history has fallen more and more into the hands of academics.
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Some of my father’s fellow West Pointers once asked him why I turned out so well, his secret in raising me. And he said, ‘I never gave him any advice, and he never asked for any.’ We agreed on nothing, but we never quarreled once.
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Corporations must pay tax.
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Washington turned a blind eye to Al-Qaeda.
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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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In writing and politicking, it’s best not to think about it, just do it.
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Obama just came swiftly out of nowhere, which was a relief to those of us who care about the Republic, and at first he seemed a very good thing.
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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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It’s always best to stay out of other people’s divorces. And their civil wars.
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The first grown-up book that I read on my own was a nineteenth-century edition of ‘Tales from Livy’ that I’d found in my grandfather’s library.
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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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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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By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he’s been bought ten times over.
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Remember, I’m West Point, where I was born. My father went there.
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Now you have people in Washington who have no interest in the country at all. They’re interested in their companies, their corporations grabbing Caspian oil.
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To invent a war means that you’ve become a wartime president, and you can suspend much if not all of the Bill of Rights.
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In the German concentration camps, Jews wore yellow stars while homosexuals wore pink lambdas.
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TV news is not very instructive.
GORE VIDAL