Policemen are seldom tried for their crimes, or indeed, held responsible for what they do, which disturbs the peace and causes distress among the orderly.
GORE VIDALIt is true, as Sartre once wrote, referring to French Army atrocities in Algeria, that the real tragedy in our time is that any of us can be, interchangeably, victim or torturer.
More Gore Vidal Quotes
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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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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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I’m not paranoid, no. I’m different in that I have enemies. Very real ones.
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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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Anybody who is stupid enough to want to be remembered deserves to be forgotten right now.
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Envy is the central fact of American life.
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From April 1775 to July 1776, the undeclared war between England and its American colonies smoldered, flared up, appeared to sputter out… It was hardly, ever, a mass rebellion.
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Each youth betrays considerable anxiety about the wedding night ahead.
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The media can’t get anything straight.
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The behaviour of President Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to not unnatural suspicions.
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Never have children, only grandchildren.
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The only thing that I react really violently to is being misquoted.
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Ayn Rand is a rhetorician who writes novels I have never been able to read.
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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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It is always a delicate matter, when a friend or acquaintance becomes president.
GORE VIDAL