black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness of writers.

Gore Vidal

There is something about a bureaucrat that does not like a poem.
GORE VIDAL

Poem Police
I am only at home in the present.
GORE VIDAL

Home Oneself Present
Americans have no idea of the extent of their government’s mischief… the number of military strikes we have made unprovoked, against other countries, since 1947 is more than 250.
GORE VIDAL

Age Country Government Ideas Mischief Provoke Strike
In the writing of novels, there is the problem of how to shape a narrative.
GORE VIDAL

Novel Problem Shape Writing
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

Money Talk Tax Time
By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he’s been bought ten times over.
GORE VIDAL

Himself Man Material President Time
Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale.
GORE VIDAL

Democracy Form High Ourselves Scale
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
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
That loyal retainer of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the American president.
GORE VIDAL

Bank Loyalty President
Policemen are seldom tried for their crimes, or indeed, held responsible for what they do, which disturbs the peace and causes distress among the orderly.
GORE VIDAL

Crime Disturb Order Peace Police Responsibility
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
The only thing that I react really violently to is being misquoted.
GORE VIDAL

Misunderstanding Quote Reaction Violence
It is essential to naturalist doctrine that literature, to be good, must, finally, be the author’s experience worked out literally.
GORE VIDAL

Essential Experience Literature Natural Work
Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.
GORE VIDAL

Candidate Democracy Issues Place
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

That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness of writers.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness of writers.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Gore Vidal Quotes