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There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices.

Gore Vidal

We are pleased to dismiss politics as entirely corrupt, if not financially, intellectually.
GORE VIDAL

Financial Intellectual Politics
There’s a lot to be said for being nouveau riche, and the Reagans mean to say it all.
GORE VIDAL

Identity Myself
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.
GORE VIDAL

Book Edition Grown Library Reading
Every country should have at least one King Farouk.
GORE VIDAL

Country Oneself
Everything’s wrong on Wikipedia.
GORE VIDAL

Wikipedia Wrong
At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation and prejudice.
GORE VIDAL

Chaos Moments Opinion Prejudice Public
All children alarm their parents, if only because you are forever expecting to encounter yourself.
GORE VIDAL

Children Expectation Forever
TV news is not very instructive.
GORE VIDAL

Instruction One Liner
It is true, as Sartre once wrote, referring to French Army atrocities in Algeria, that the real tragedy in our time is that any of us can be, interchangeably, victim or torturer.
GORE VIDAL

Change Reality Time Torture Victim
I am not, at heart, a playwright.
GORE VIDAL

Heart Personality Play
I was like everyone else when Obama was elected – optimistic.
GORE VIDAL

Myself Optimistic President
You hear all this whining going on, ‘Where are our great writers?’ The thing I might feel doleful about is: Where are the readers?
GORE VIDAL

Greatness Reading Writing Yourself
Sex is. There is nothing more to be done about it. Sex builds no roads, writes no novels and sex certainly gives no meaning to anything in life but itself.
GORE VIDAL

Build Meaning Novel Sex
I think I have a normal threshold of anger, but it’s true that I am, by nature, belligerent.
GORE VIDAL

Angry Myself Nature Thinking
In writing and politicking, it’s best not to think about it, just do it.
GORE VIDAL

Best Thinking Writing
Gossip is conversation about people.
GORE VIDAL

Conversation Gossip People
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
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
GORE VIDAL

Enough Failure Success
Some have deplored Lincoln’s indifference to Christianity. But it was not religion, it was religiosity that put him off.
GORE VIDAL

Difference Himself Religion
The greatest pleasure when I started making money was not buying cars or yachts but finding myself able to have as many freshly typed drafts as possible.
GORE VIDAL

Finding Greatness Pleasure Possible
The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country – and we haven’t seen them since.
GORE VIDAL

Country Finding People State
There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices.
GORE VIDAL

Impulse People Person Practice Sexual
The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.
GORE VIDAL

Beautiful Language Ourselves Word
I’m exactly as I appear. There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water.
GORE VIDAL

Appearance Cold Love Warm Water Yourself
In essence, Clinton’s Anti-Terrorism Act would set up a national police force, over the long-dead bodies of the founders.
GORE VIDAL

Act Finding Force National Police
Some of my father’s fellow West Pointers once asked him why I turned out so well, his secret in raising me. And he said, ‘I never gave him any advice, and he never asked for any.’ We agreed on nothing, but we never quarreled once.
GORE VIDAL

Agreement Father Fellow Himself Raise Secret
As for my support for Obama, remember that I was brought up in Washington. It was an all-black city when I was a kid. And I’ve always been very pro-African-American – or whatever phrase we now use.
GORE VIDAL

Children Country Myself Support

There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices.

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There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices.

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Popular Authors

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