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On 16 September 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died.

Gore Vidal

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.
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Book Edition Grown Library Reading
The United States is the only civilized country in the world to class its teachers at the bottom of the social scale.
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Civilization Country Scale Social Teacher World
Television is now so desperately hungry for material that they’re scraping the top of the barrel.
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Material Media Television Top
The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all.
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Need Reminder Theatre Well Worth
The American high school graduate is two years behind his English, French or German counterpart; in Alabama, God knows how far behind.
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God Graduation Known Yourself
It is always a delicate matter, when a friend or acquaintance becomes president.
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Delicate Friendship President
My father had lifelong contempt for politicians.
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Father Life Myself Politics
Until the rise of American advertising, it never occurred to anyone anywhere in the world that the teenager was a captive in a hostile world of adults.
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Adult Advertise Captive Rise World
Ayn Rand is a rhetorician who writes novels I have never been able to read.
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Myself Novel Reading Writing
The truth about Pearl Harbour is obscured to this day. But it has been much studied.
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Day Study Truth Unknown
TV news is not very instructive.
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Instruction One Liner
The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity – much less dissent.
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Elimination Management Media Object Opinion World
History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true.
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Gossip History Hope Past True
A friend was surprised to hear me say that there was not one moment of my past that I would like to relive.
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Friendship Moments Myself Past Surprise
Some have deplored Lincoln’s indifference to Christianity. But it was not religion, it was religiosity that put him off.
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Difference Himself Religion
He who is last had best laugh.
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End Himself Laughter
I’m a fervent foe of water pollution, whether it is our own Hudson River or Philadelphia’s tap water.
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Myself Nature Pollution Water
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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Election Illumination Language Liberal Society Vote
I never wanted to be a writer. I mean, that’s the last thing I wanted.
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Dream Myself Writing
I think I have a normal threshold of anger, but it’s true that I am, by nature, belligerent.
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Angry Myself Nature Thinking
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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Hope Newspaper Oneself People Reading
A racial or religious or tribal identity is a kind of fact.
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Fact Identity Kind Race Religious Tribal
In the German concentration camps, Jews wore yellow stars while homosexuals wore pink lambdas.
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Camp Concentration Discrimination German Oppression
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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Believe Comedy Goodness Place Stone Theatre Writing
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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Greatness Reading Writing Yourself
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
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Enough Failure Success
That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness of writers.
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Busy Oneself Sadness Writing

On 16 September 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died.

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On 16 September 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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