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Today’s public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can’t read them either.

Gore Vidal

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.
GORE VIDAL

Believe Comedy Goodness Place Stone Theatre Writing
I’m all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.
GORE VIDAL

Adult Consent Myself
Nearly everyone who goes into a campaign is not only eager for the place he hopes to fill but for what might come after.
GORE VIDAL

Filling Himself Hope Place
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
Every country should have at least one King Farouk.
GORE VIDAL

Country Oneself
It is very difficult for a writer of my generation, if he is honest, to pretend indifference to the work of Somerset Maugham. He was always so entirely there.
GORE VIDAL

Difficult Himself Honesty Pretend
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.
GORE VIDAL

Civil Finding Liberty Live Police
Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they’re both just aspirin.
GORE VIDAL

Choice Democracy Feeling Perspective Politics
There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.
GORE VIDAL

Human Myself People Problem Solution
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
Like the TV networks, once our government has a hit, it will be repeated over and over again.
GORE VIDAL

Government Repeat Willing
Having no contemporaries left means you cannot say, ‘Well, so-and-so will like this,’ which you do when you’re younger. You realize there is no so-and-so anymore. You are your own so-and-so. There is a bleak side to it.
GORE VIDAL

Contemporary Realize Young Yourself
As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.
GORE VIDAL

Age Perfection Progression Rule Television
We’re not a democracy.
GORE VIDAL

Democracy One Liner
There is something about a bureaucrat that does not like a poem.
GORE VIDAL

Poem Police
Jack Kennedy very much enjoyed Fletcher Knebel’s thriller ‘Seven Days in May,’ later a film. The story: a jingo based on the real-life Admiral Arthur Radford plans a military coup to take over the White House.
GORE VIDAL

Enjoyment Life Military Reality Story

Today’s public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can’t read them either.

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Today’s public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can’t read them either.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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