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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

What I am is something unbearable for the world of journalism and the world of cliches. I’m a realist.
GORE VIDAL

Journalism Reality World
It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, no matter how suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true.
GORE VIDAL

Age Believe Exercise Imagination Spirit
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
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
He who is last had best laugh.
GORE VIDAL

End Himself Laughter
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
GORE VIDAL

Enough Failure 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
I can understand companionship.
GORE VIDAL

Companionship Understand
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
You hear all this whining going on, ‘Where are our great writers?’ The thing I might feel doleful about is: Where are the readers?
GORE VIDAL

Greatness Reading Writing Yourself
We are pleased to dismiss politics as entirely corrupt, if not financially, intellectually.
GORE VIDAL

Financial Intellectual Politics
Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.
GORE VIDAL

Confidence Personality Style Yourself
By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he’s been bought ten times over.
GORE VIDAL

Himself Man Material President Time
Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale.
GORE VIDAL

Democracy Form High Ourselves Scale
I am not, at heart, a playwright.
GORE VIDAL

Heart Personality Play
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
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.
GORE VIDAL

Behave Comparison Mindset Myself Team
Obama just came swiftly out of nowhere, which was a relief to those of us who care about the Republic, and at first he seemed a very good thing.
GORE VIDAL

Goodness Government Himself Politics President Public relief
There is something about a bureaucrat that does not like a poem.
GORE VIDAL

Poem Police
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
Corporations must pay tax.
GORE VIDAL

Corporation Pay Tax
I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television.
GORE VIDAL

Appearance Chance Missing Television
The United States is a madhouse.
GORE VIDAL

Country Home Madness State
A racial or religious or tribal identity is a kind of fact.
GORE VIDAL

Fact Identity Kind Race Religious Tribal
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
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
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

Artist Himself Magic Mystery Public View

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

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

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