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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

You cannot deprive somebody of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, because that is a right – constitutional right.
GORE VIDAL

Happiness Liberty Life Right
Nearly everyone who goes into a campaign is not only eager for the place he hopes to fill but for what might come after.
GORE VIDAL

Filling Himself Hope Place
I never said I was gay, because I don’t think anyone is.
GORE VIDAL

Myself Sexuality Thinking
I never wanted to be a writer. I mean, that’s the last thing I wanted.
GORE VIDAL

Dream Myself Writing
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
It’s always best to stay out of other people’s divorces. And their civil wars.
GORE VIDAL

Best Divorce Finding Ourselves People Stay
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
The Turner Diaries’ is a racist daydream by a former physics teacher writing under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald.
GORE VIDAL

Race Teacher Writing
I remember the Bond movies when I was a child. They were silent then.
GORE VIDAL

Children Myself Remember Silence
We’re not a democracy.
GORE VIDAL

Democracy One Liner
All children alarm their parents, if only because you are forever expecting to encounter yourself.
GORE VIDAL

Children Expectation Forever
Americans, in general, are ignorant, bigoted, and deeply unhappy with their declining incomes.
GORE VIDAL

Decline Ignorance Income Sadness
What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke?
GORE VIDAL

Culture Joke Production See
I am only at home in the present.
GORE VIDAL

Home Oneself Present
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
Since we have literally targeted our enemies, the Pentagon assumes that, sooner or later, rogues will take out our cities, presumably from spaceships.
GORE VIDAL

Assumption Enemy Ourselves Space Target
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
That loyal retainer of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the American president.
GORE VIDAL

Bank Loyalty President
TV news is not very instructive.
GORE VIDAL

Instruction One Liner
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
The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all.
GORE VIDAL

Need Reminder Theatre Well Worth
American history has fallen more and more into the hands of academics.
GORE VIDAL

Academics Fall Hands History
Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
GORE VIDAL

Hope Newspaper Oneself People Reading
By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he’s been bought ten times over.
GORE VIDAL

Himself Man Material President Time
Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.
GORE VIDAL

Definition Preparation President
There’s a lot to be said for being nouveau riche, and the Reagans mean to say it all.
GORE VIDAL

Identity Myself
As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.
GORE VIDAL

Election Illumination Language Liberal Society Vote

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

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