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

Gore Vidal

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
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
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
Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.
GORE VIDAL

Audience Drink Writing
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
As a schoolboy, I read most of Carl Sandburg’s six-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln.
GORE VIDAL

Myself Reading
I could be a lot happier. I could be the senator from Aerospace taking bribes, and be quite happy.
GORE VIDAL

Bribe Happiness Myself Quite
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
Of all recent presidents, Clinton was expected to behave the most sensibly in economic matters. He understood how the economy works. But because he had used various dodges to stay out of the Vietnam War, he came to office ill at ease with the military.
GORE VIDAL

Economy Himself President Understand Work
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
We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
GORE VIDAL

Artist Discover Emotion Important Known World
Gossip is conversation about people.
GORE VIDAL

Conversation Gossip People
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
What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke?
GORE VIDAL

Culture Joke Production See
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
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

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

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Popular Authors

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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