Europe began as the relatively empty, uncivilized Wild West of Asia; then the Western Hemisphere became the Wild West of Europe. Now the sun has set in our West and risen once more in the East.
GORE VIDALIn the writing of novels, there is the problem of how to shape a narrative.
More Gore Vidal Quotes
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Americans, in general, are ignorant, bigoted, and deeply unhappy with their declining incomes.
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Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.
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What I like least about myself is my belligerence.
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The only thing that I react really violently to is being misquoted.
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To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy.
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I can understand companionship.
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Both Marx and Christ agree that in this life, a right action is consideration for the welfare of others.
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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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One is sorry one could not have taken both branches of the road. But we were not allotted multiple selves.
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I’m exactly as I appear. There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water.
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I am not, at heart, a playwright.
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As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.
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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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In essence, Clinton’s Anti-Terrorism Act would set up a national police force, over the long-dead bodies of the founders.
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We are pleased to dismiss politics as entirely corrupt, if not financially, intellectually.
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