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After adolescence, if one’s life is sufficiently interesting, the desire to tell oneself stories diminishes.

Gore Vidal

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

Poem Police
Gossip is conversation about people.
GORE VIDAL

Conversation Gossip People
I’m a fervent foe of water pollution, whether it is our own Hudson River or Philadelphia’s tap water.
GORE VIDAL

Myself Nature Pollution Water
In the writing of novels, there is the problem of how to shape a narrative.
GORE VIDAL

Novel Problem Shape Writing
My father had lifelong contempt for politicians.
GORE VIDAL

Father Life Myself Politics
I cannot remember when I was not fascinated by Henry Adams.
GORE VIDAL

Fascination Myself Remember
A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.
GORE VIDAL

Better Narcissism Yourself
There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices.
GORE VIDAL

Impulse People Person Practice Sexual
I am not, at heart, a playwright.
GORE VIDAL

Heart Personality Play
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
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
On September 5, 1774, forty-five of the weightiest colonial men formed the First Continental Congress at Philadelphia.
GORE VIDAL

Congress Form Man Weight
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
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
I can’t name three first-rate literary critics in the United States. I’m told there are a few hidden away at universities, but they don’t print them in ‘The New York Times.’
GORE VIDAL

Criticism Literature Myself Name University
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

After adolescence, if one’s life is sufficiently interesting, the desire to tell oneself stories diminishes.

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After adolescence, if one’s life is sufficiently interesting, the desire to tell oneself stories diminishes.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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