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You hear all this whining going on, ‘Where are our great writers?’ The thing I might feel doleful about is: Where are the readers?

Gore Vidal

Never have children, only grandchildren.
GORE VIDAL

Children Family Funny
Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that stillness without which literature cannot be made.
GORE VIDAL

Active Literature Lose Time Virtue World Writing
I know a lot of the Annapolis breed.
GORE VIDAL

Known Myself
Since we have literally targeted our enemies, the Pentagon assumes that, sooner or later, rogues will take out our cities, presumably from spaceships.
GORE VIDAL

Assumption Enemy Ourselves Space Target
I was like everyone else when Obama was elected – optimistic.
GORE VIDAL

Myself Optimistic President
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.
GORE VIDAL

Economy Himself President Understand Work
I’m a fervent foe of water pollution, whether it is our own Hudson River or Philadelphia’s tap water.
GORE VIDAL

Myself Nature Pollution Water
As a schoolboy, I read most of Carl Sandburg’s six-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln.
GORE VIDAL

Myself Reading
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.
GORE VIDAL

Bird Man Stand Time
Americans, in general, are ignorant, bigoted, and deeply unhappy with their declining incomes.
GORE VIDAL

Decline Ignorance Income Sadness
To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy.
GORE VIDAL

Government Need People Philosophy Religion
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.
GORE VIDAL

Damage End Greatness Nation Powerful War
It is very difficult for a writer of my generation, if he is honest, to pretend indifference to the work of Somerset Maugham. He was always so entirely there.
GORE VIDAL

Difficult Himself Honesty Pretend
The only thing that I react really violently to is being misquoted.
GORE VIDAL

Misunderstanding Quote Reaction Violence
Every country should have at least one King Farouk.
GORE VIDAL

Country Oneself
American history has fallen more and more into the hands of academics.
GORE VIDAL

Academics Fall Hands History

You hear all this whining going on, ‘Where are our great writers?’ The thing I might feel doleful about is: Where are the readers?

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You hear all this whining going on, ‘Where are our great writers?’ The thing I might feel doleful about is: Where are the readers?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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