Anybody who is stupid enough to want to be remembered deserves to be forgotten right now.
GORE VIDALEurope began as the relatively empty, uncivilized Wild West of Asia; then the Western Hemisphere became the Wild West of Europe. Now the sun has set in our West and risen once more in the East.
More Gore Vidal Quotes
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That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness of writers.
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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.
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Envy is the central fact of American life.
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In writing and politicking, it’s best not to think about it, just do it.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Write something, even if it’s just a suicide note.
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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.
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Today’s public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can’t read them either.
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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.
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Certainly ‘The Judgment of Paris’ was the novel in which I found my own voice.
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Fifty percent of people won’t vote, and fifty percent don’t read newspapers. I hope it’s the same fifty percent.
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The United States is a madhouse.
GORE VIDAL