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The Pentagon talks about our power to ‘overkill’ Russia ten times, twenty times, perhaps forty-eight times. For my tax money, it is sufficient to overkill them once.

Gore Vidal

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

Death Department Nation State
I’ve yet to read a memoir by anyone I’ve known at all well that came anywhere near to the truth.
GORE VIDAL

Myself Reading Truth
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.
GORE VIDAL

Credible Exception Ignorance Possible Society
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.
GORE VIDAL

Need Reminder Theatre Well Worth
Does one ever read a politician’s books?
GORE VIDAL

Book Oneself Politics Reading
By the end of World War II, we were the most powerful and least damaged of the great nations. We also had most of the money. America’s hegemony lasted exactly five years.
GORE VIDAL

Damage End Greatness Nation Powerful War
A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.
GORE VIDAL

Better Narcissism Yourself
Ayn Rand is a rhetorician who writes novels I have never been able to read.
GORE VIDAL

Myself Novel Reading Writing
To a man, ornithologists are tall, slender, and bearded so that they can stand motionless for hours, imitating kindly trees, as they watch for birds.
GORE VIDAL

Bird Man Stand Time
Obama just came swiftly out of nowhere, which was a relief to those of us who care about the Republic, and at first he seemed a very good thing.
GORE VIDAL

Goodness Government Himself Politics President Public relief
While campaigning, I got to know many high-school teachers, and let me say that the good ones are the unsung heroes of our society, and the bad ones are the gravediggers.
GORE VIDAL

Goodness Known Ourselves Society
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
Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.
GORE VIDAL

Business Country Faith Fiction Lost Writing
Everything’s wrong on Wikipedia.
GORE VIDAL

Wikipedia Wrong
That loyal retainer of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the American president.
GORE VIDAL

Bank Loyalty President
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

The Pentagon talks about our power to ‘overkill’ Russia ten times, twenty times, perhaps forty-eight times. For my tax money, it is sufficient to overkill them once.

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The Pentagon talks about our power to ‘overkill’ Russia ten times, twenty times, perhaps forty-eight times. For my tax money, it is sufficient to overkill them once.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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