It is essential to naturalist doctrine that literature, to be good, must, finally, be the author’s experience worked out literally.
GORE VIDALTemperamentally, I am suspicious of belonging to anything. When I ran for office, I debated seriously whether or not to run as an independent because I was not eager to be saddled with the Democratic Party, because any party label is committing.
More Gore Vidal Quotes
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Gossip is conversation about people.
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What is in question is a kind of book reviewing which seems to be more and more popular: the loose putting down of opinions as though they were facts, and the treating of facts as though they were opinions.
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I can understand companionship.
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Envy is the central fact of American life.
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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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It’s odd to meet a rather elderly man who says, ‘I’ve been reading you all my life.’ It makes you feel a slight chill.
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Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.
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What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke?
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Nearly everyone who goes into a campaign is not only eager for the place he hopes to fill but for what might come after.
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I never said I was gay, because I don’t think anyone is.
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American history has fallen more and more into the hands of academics.
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I don’t even read most reviews, unless there is a potential lawsuit on view.
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Until very recently, the artist was a magician who did his magic in public view but kept himself and his effects a matter of mystery.
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The media can’t get anything straight.
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One is sorry one could not have taken both branches of the road. But we were not allotted multiple selves.
GORE VIDAL