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To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy.

Gore Vidal

Gossip is conversation about people.
GORE VIDAL

Conversation Gossip People
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
Temperamentally, I am suspicious of belonging to anything. When I ran for office, I debated seriously whether or not to run as an independent because I was not eager to be saddled with the Democratic Party, because any party label is committing.
GORE VIDAL

Commitment Democracy Government Independent Party Politics Serious
Television is now so desperately hungry for material that they’re scraping the top of the barrel.
GORE VIDAL

Material Media Television Top
Certainly ‘The Judgment of Paris’ was the novel in which I found my own voice.
GORE VIDAL

Finding Judgement Myself Novel Voice
Both Marx and Christ agree that in this life, a right action is consideration for the welfare of others.
GORE VIDAL

Action God Karma Life Right Welfare
To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy.
GORE VIDAL

Government Need People Philosophy Religion
The unfed mind devours itself.
GORE VIDAL

Devour Mindset
I remember the Bond movies when I was a child. They were silent then.
GORE VIDAL

Children Myself Remember Silence
It is always a delicate matter, when a friend or acquaintance becomes president.
GORE VIDAL

Delicate Friendship President
He who is last had best laugh.
GORE VIDAL

End Himself Laughter
American history has fallen more and more into the hands of academics.
GORE VIDAL

Academics Fall Hands History
Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.
GORE VIDAL

Attack Death Earth Ourselves Thinking
In classical times, it was a capital offense to speculate upon the hour of a king’s death or upon the identity of his successor.
GORE VIDAL

Capital Death Himself Offense Success Time
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
The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.
GORE VIDAL

Beautiful Language Ourselves Word
If you are a Representative and want to be a Senator, you must be careful not to do anything which might upset the various forces you need to harness to get elected.
GORE VIDAL

Election Force Yourself
There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.
GORE VIDAL

Human Myself People Problem Solution
The media can’t get anything straight.
GORE VIDAL

Media Straight
Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.
GORE VIDAL

Death Friendship Myself Success
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
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
What I like least about myself is my belligerence.
GORE VIDAL

Character Myself Nature
Until the rise of American advertising, it never occurred to anyone anywhere in the world that the teenager was a captive in a hostile world of adults.
GORE VIDAL

Adult Advertise Captive Rise World
As for my support for Obama, remember that I was brought up in Washington. It was an all-black city when I was a kid. And I’ve always been very pro-African-American – or whatever phrase we now use.
GORE VIDAL

Children Country Myself Support
The United States is a madhouse.
GORE VIDAL

Country Home Madness State
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

To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy.

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To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy.

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Popular Authors

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