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Until very recently, the artist was a magician who did his magic in public view but kept himself and his effects a matter of mystery.

Gore Vidal

Write something, even if it’s just a suicide note.
GORE VIDAL

Note Suicide Writing
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
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.
GORE VIDAL

Civil Finding Liberty Live Police
What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke?
GORE VIDAL

Culture Joke Production See
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
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
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
The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return.
GORE VIDAL

Class Genius heavy Ourselves Rule System
The behaviour of President Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to not unnatural suspicions.
GORE VIDAL

Natural President Rise Suspicion
I never wanted to be a writer. I mean, that’s the last thing I wanted.
GORE VIDAL

Dream Myself Writing
Certainly ‘The Judgment of Paris’ was the novel in which I found my own voice.
GORE VIDAL

Finding Judgement Myself Novel Voice
I think I have a normal threshold of anger, but it’s true that I am, by nature, belligerent.
GORE VIDAL

Angry Myself Nature Thinking
Washington turned a blind eye to Al-Qaeda.
GORE VIDAL

Blind Eyes Ignore
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.
GORE VIDAL

Change Reality Time Torture Victim
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
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.
GORE VIDAL

Evidence Figure Reading Speech

Until very recently, the artist was a magician who did his magic in public view but kept himself and his effects a matter of mystery.

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Until very recently, the artist was a magician who did his magic in public view but kept himself and his effects a matter of mystery.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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