When I say ‘president,’ I still mean Roosevelt – wisely, I think.
GORE VIDALDemocracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they’re both just aspirin.
More Gore Vidal Quotes
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World 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.
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Never have children, only grandchildren.
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By the end of World War II, we were the most powerful and least damaged of the great nations. We also had most of the money. America’s hegemony lasted exactly five years.
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Everything’s wrong on Wikipedia.
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I know a lot of the Annapolis breed.
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I can understand companionship.
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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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To a man, ornithologists are tall, slender, and bearded so that they can stand motionless for hours, imitating kindly trees, as they watch for birds.
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There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.
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Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.
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The United States is a madhouse.
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Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale.
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The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return.
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Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.
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Corporations must pay tax.
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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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After adolescence, if one’s life is sufficiently interesting, the desire to tell oneself stories diminishes.
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What the police in their ignorance have not figured out is that they have lost all credibility since World War II. They are sort of parasites on the fringe of society and do no particular good for anyone except possibly themselves.
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There’s a lot to be said for being nouveau riche, and the Reagans mean to say it all.
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The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country – and we haven’t seen them since.
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It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, no matter how suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true.
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I think I have a normal threshold of anger, but it’s true that I am, by nature, belligerent.
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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.
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I’m always an optimist!
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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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The only thing that I react really violently to is being misquoted.
GORE VIDAL