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That loyal retainer of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the American president.

Gore Vidal

As a schoolboy, I read most of Carl Sandburg’s six-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln.
GORE VIDAL

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

Delicate Friendship President
Americans, in general, are ignorant, bigoted, and deeply unhappy with their declining incomes.
GORE VIDAL

Decline Ignorance Income Sadness
A racial or religious or tribal identity is a kind of fact.
GORE VIDAL

Fact Identity Kind Race Religious Tribal
It is very difficult for a writer of my generation, if he is honest, to pretend indifference to the work of Somerset Maugham. He was always so entirely there.
GORE VIDAL

Difficult Himself Honesty Pretend
Each youth betrays considerable anxiety about the wedding night ahead.
GORE VIDAL

Anxiety Night Youth
Envy is the central fact of American life.
GORE VIDAL

Central Fact Life
Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that stillness without which literature cannot be made.
GORE VIDAL

Active Literature Lose Time Virtue World Writing
I’m always an optimist!
GORE VIDAL

Myself Optimism
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 United States is a madhouse.
GORE VIDAL

Country Home Madness State
When I say ‘president,’ I still mean Roosevelt – wisely, I think.
GORE VIDAL

Myself President Thinking
The truth about Pearl Harbour is obscured to this day. But it has been much studied.
GORE VIDAL

Day Study Truth Unknown
There is only one party in the United States: the Property party… and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.
GORE VIDAL

Democracy Party Politics Republic
The American high school graduate is two years behind his English, French or German counterpart; in Alabama, God knows how far behind.
GORE VIDAL

God Graduation Known Yourself
In America, the race goes to the loud, the solemn, the hustler. If you think you’re a great writer, you must say that you are.
GORE VIDAL

Greatness Loud Race Yourself

That loyal retainer of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the American president.

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That loyal retainer of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the American president.

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