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The only thing that I react really violently to is being misquoted.

Gore Vidal

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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Death Department Nation State
The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.
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Beautiful Language Ourselves Word
By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he’s been bought ten times over.
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Himself Man Material President Time
What the police in their ignorance have not figured out is that they have lost all credibility since World War II. They are sort of parasites on the fringe of society and do no particular good for anyone except possibly themselves.
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Credible Exception Ignorance Possible Society
World War II made prosperous the United States, which had been undergoing a depression for a dozen years, and made very rich those magnates and their managers who govern the republic – with many a wink – in the people’s name.
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Depression Government Manager Name People Public Rich War
There’s a lot to be said for being nouveau riche, and the Reagans mean to say it all.
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Identity Myself
TV news is not very instructive.
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Instruction One Liner
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
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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Active Literature Lose Time Virtue World Writing
We are pleased to dismiss politics as entirely corrupt, if not financially, intellectually.
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Financial Intellectual Politics
I am told the Cheney-Bush team dislikes their junta being compared to the Nazis. If they ceased behaving like Nazis, no comparison would come to mind.
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Behave Comparison Mindset Myself Team
All children alarm their parents, if only because you are forever expecting to encounter yourself.
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Children Expectation Forever
American history has fallen more and more into the hands of academics.
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Academics Fall Hands History
What I am is something unbearable for the world of journalism and the world of cliches. I’m a realist.
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Journalism Reality World
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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Book Fact Kind Loose Opinion Popular Question Review Treat
Litigation takes the place of sex at middle age.
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Age One Liner Place Sex
After adolescence, if one’s life is sufficiently interesting, the desire to tell oneself stories diminishes.
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Diminish Interesting Life Oneself Story
The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return.
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Class Genius heavy Ourselves Rule System
As for civil liberties, any one who is not vigilant may one day find himself living, if not in a police state, at least in a police city.
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Civil Finding Liberty Live Police
I was the most famous kid in the United States. That was 1936.
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Children Country Famous Past Time
When I say ‘president,’ I still mean Roosevelt – wisely, I think.
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Myself President Thinking
What I like least about myself is my belligerence.
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Character Myself Nature
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
Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.
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Audience Drink Writing
In the writing of novels, there is the problem of how to shape a narrative.
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Novel Problem Shape Writing
I never wanted to be a writer. I mean, that’s the last thing I wanted.
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Dream Myself Writing
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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Attack Death Earth Ourselves Thinking

The only thing that I react really violently to is being misquoted.

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The only thing that I react really violently to is being misquoted.

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