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The American high school graduate is two years behind his English, French or German counterpart; in Alabama, God knows how far behind.

Gore Vidal

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
In character, as it were, the writer settles for an impression of what happened rather than creating the sense of the thing happening.
GORE VIDAL

Character Creation Impression Myself Settle Writing
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
Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.
GORE VIDAL

Death Friendship Myself Success
Jews, blacks and homosexuals are despised by the Christian and Communist majorities of East and West. Also, as a result of the invention of Israel, Jews can now count on the hatred of the Islamic world.
GORE VIDAL

Black Communist Hate Result World
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
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
Washington turned a blind eye to Al-Qaeda.
GORE VIDAL

Blind Eyes Ignore
Anybody who is stupid enough to want to be remembered deserves to be forgotten right now.
GORE VIDAL

Deserve Enough Stupidity
There is only one party in the United States: the Property party… and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.
GORE VIDAL

Democracy Party Politics Republic
The United States is the only civilized country in the world to class its teachers at the bottom of the social scale.
GORE VIDAL

Civilization Country Scale Social Teacher World
The only thing that I react really violently to is being misquoted.
GORE VIDAL

Misunderstanding Quote Reaction Violence
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
In America, the race goes to the loud, the solemn, the hustler. If you think you’re a great writer, you must say that you are.
GORE VIDAL

Greatness Loud Race Yourself
On September 5, 1774, forty-five of the weightiest colonial men formed the First Continental Congress at Philadelphia.
GORE VIDAL

Congress Form Man Weight
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
A friend was surprised to hear me say that there was not one moment of my past that I would like to relive.
GORE VIDAL

Friendship Moments Myself Past Surprise
I am a novelist turned temporary adventurer, and I chose to write television, movies and plays for much the same reason that Henry Morgan selected the Spanish Main for his peculiar – and not dissimilar – sphere of operations.
GORE VIDAL

Adventure Movie Myself Novel Operation Play Sphere Temporary
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
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
I never wanted to be a writer. I mean, that’s the last thing I wanted.
GORE VIDAL

Dream Myself Writing
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
Certainly ‘The Judgment of Paris’ was the novel in which I found my own voice.
GORE VIDAL

Finding Judgement Myself Novel Voice
That loyal retainer of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the American president.
GORE VIDAL

Bank Loyalty President
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
I am not, at heart, a playwright.
GORE VIDAL

Heart Personality Play
Ayn Rand is a rhetorician who writes novels I have never been able to read.
GORE VIDAL

Myself Novel Reading Writing

The American high school graduate is two years behind his English, French or German counterpart; in Alabama, God knows how far behind.

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Popular Authors

The American high school graduate is two years behind his English, French or German counterpart; in Alabama, God knows how far behind.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Gore Vidal Quotes