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By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he’s been bought ten times over.

Gore Vidal

Some have deplored Lincoln’s indifference to Christianity. But it was not religion, it was religiosity that put him off.
GORE VIDAL

Difference Himself Religion
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
Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.
GORE VIDAL

Audience Drink Writing
We’re not a democracy.
GORE VIDAL

Democracy One Liner
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.
GORE VIDAL

Colony Mass Rebel War
I never wanted to be a writer. I mean, that’s the last thing I wanted.
GORE VIDAL

Dream Myself Writing
Why not just eliminate the federal income tax?
GORE VIDAL

Elimination Income Tax
I remember the Bond movies when I was a child. They were silent then.
GORE VIDAL

Children Myself Remember Silence
That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness of writers.
GORE VIDAL

Busy Oneself Sadness Writing
A racial or religious or tribal identity is a kind of fact.
GORE VIDAL

Fact Identity Kind Race Religious Tribal
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.
GORE VIDAL

Capital Death Himself Offense Success Time
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
Actually, I can’t remember when I was not writing.
GORE VIDAL

Myself Remember Writing
What I am is something unbearable for the world of journalism and the world of cliches. I’m a realist.
GORE VIDAL

Journalism Reality World
The truth about Pearl Harbour is obscured to this day. But it has been much studied.
GORE VIDAL

Day Study Truth Unknown
In the writing of novels, there is the problem of how to shape a narrative.
GORE VIDAL

Novel Problem Shape Writing
As a schoolboy, I read most of Carl Sandburg’s six-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln.
GORE VIDAL

Myself Reading
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.
GORE VIDAL

Book Edition Grown Library Reading
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.
GORE VIDAL

Company Corporation Country Interest People Yourself
I’m all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.
GORE VIDAL

Adult Consent Myself
Anybody who is stupid enough to want to be remembered deserves to be forgotten right now.
GORE VIDAL

Deserve Enough Stupidity
All in all, I would not have missed this century for the world.
GORE VIDAL

Missing Myself World
Love is not my bag.
GORE VIDAL

Love One Liner
I was the most famous kid in the United States. That was 1936.
GORE VIDAL

Children Country Famous Past Time
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
GORE VIDAL

Enough Failure Success
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.
GORE VIDAL

Agreement Father Fellow Himself Raise Secret
I cannot remember when I was not fascinated by Henry Adams.
GORE VIDAL

Fascination Myself Remember

By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he’s been bought ten times over.

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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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