black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

When I say ‘president,’ I still mean Roosevelt – wisely, I think.

Gore Vidal

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.
GORE VIDAL

Election Illumination Language Liberal Society Vote
By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he’s been bought ten times over.
GORE VIDAL

Himself Man Material President Time
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 Turner Diaries’ is a racist daydream by a former physics teacher writing under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald.
GORE VIDAL

Race Teacher Writing
I’m not paranoid, no. I’m different in that I have enemies. Very real ones.
GORE VIDAL

Different Enemy Oneself Reality
The media can’t get anything straight.
GORE VIDAL

Media Straight
In writing and politicking, it’s best not to think about it, just do it.
GORE VIDAL

Best Thinking Writing
All in all, I would not have missed this century for the world.
GORE VIDAL

Missing Myself World
To preserve the human race, it is now necessary to reorganize society. To this end, an Authority must be created with the power to control human population, to redistribute food, to purify air, water, soil, to re-pattern the cities.
GORE VIDAL

Food Human Pattern Population Preserve Race Recognition
Each youth betrays considerable anxiety about the wedding night ahead.
GORE VIDAL

Anxiety Night Youth
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
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
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.
GORE VIDAL

Depression Government Manager Name People Public Rich War
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.
GORE VIDAL

Book Fact Kind Loose Opinion Popular Question Review Treat
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
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

When I say ‘president,’ I still mean Roosevelt – wisely, I think.

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When I say ‘president,’ I still mean Roosevelt – wisely, I think.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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