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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

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
The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity – much less dissent.
GORE VIDAL

Elimination Management Media Object Opinion World
Fifty percent of people won’t vote, and fifty percent don’t read newspapers. I hope it’s the same fifty percent.
GORE VIDAL

Hope Myself People Reading Vote
One is sorry one could not have taken both branches of the road. But we were not allotted multiple selves.
GORE VIDAL

Choice Journey Oneself Road
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
I remember the Bond movies when I was a child. They were silent then.
GORE VIDAL

Children Myself Remember Silence
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
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
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.
GORE VIDAL

Behave Comparison Mindset Myself Team
Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.
GORE VIDAL

Definition Preparation President
Write something, even if it’s just a suicide note.
GORE VIDAL

Note Suicide Writing
What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke?
GORE VIDAL

Culture Joke Production See
A racial or religious or tribal identity is a kind of fact.
GORE VIDAL

Fact Identity Kind Race Religious Tribal
It’s odd to meet a rather elderly man who says, ‘I’ve been reading you all my life.’ It makes you feel a slight chill.
GORE VIDAL

Feeling Life Man Yourself
You cannot deprive somebody of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, because that is a right – constitutional right.
GORE VIDAL

Happiness Liberty Life Right
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

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.

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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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