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We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.

Gore Vidal

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
To preserve the human race, it is now necessary to reorganize society. To this end, an Authority must be created with the power to control human population, to redistribute food, to purify air, water, soil, to re-pattern the cities.
GORE VIDAL

Food Human Pattern Population Preserve Race Recognition
Some of my father’s fellow West Pointers once asked him why I turned out so well, his secret in raising me. And he said, ‘I never gave him any advice, and he never asked for any.’ We agreed on nothing, but we never quarreled once.
GORE VIDAL

Agreement Father Fellow Himself Raise Secret
Some have deplored Lincoln’s indifference to Christianity. But it was not religion, it was religiosity that put him off.
GORE VIDAL

Difference Himself Religion
In the writing of novels, there is the problem of how to shape a narrative.
GORE VIDAL

Novel Problem Shape Writing
Actually, I can’t remember when I was not writing.
GORE VIDAL

Myself Remember Writing
Americans, in general, are ignorant, bigoted, and deeply unhappy with their declining incomes.
GORE VIDAL

Decline Ignorance Income Sadness
The first grown-up book that I read on my own was a nineteenth-century edition of ‘Tales from Livy’ that I’d found in my grandfather’s library.
GORE VIDAL

Book Edition Grown Library Reading
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
Boys don’t like girls around when they do boy things.
GORE VIDAL

Character Human Male Nature
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
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
I never wanted to be a writer. I mean, that’s the last thing I wanted.
GORE VIDAL

Dream Myself Writing
What is in question is a kind of book reviewing which seems to be more and more popular: the loose putting down of opinions as though they were facts, and the treating of facts as though they were opinions.
GORE VIDAL

Book Fact Kind Loose Opinion Popular Question Review Treat
Policemen are seldom tried for their crimes, or indeed, held responsible for what they do, which disturbs the peace and causes distress among the orderly.
GORE VIDAL

Crime Disturb Order Peace Police Responsibility
Fifty percent of people won’t vote, and fifty percent don’t read newspapers. I hope it’s the same fifty percent.
GORE VIDAL

Hope Myself People Reading Vote
Remember, I’m West Point, where I was born. My father went there.
GORE VIDAL

Born Father Myself Remember
The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.
GORE VIDAL

Beautiful Language Ourselves Word
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
In essence, Clinton’s Anti-Terrorism Act would set up a national police force, over the long-dead bodies of the founders.
GORE VIDAL

Act Finding Force National Police
When I say ‘president,’ I still mean Roosevelt – wisely, I think.
GORE VIDAL

Myself President Thinking
It’s odd to meet a rather elderly man who says, ‘I’ve been reading you all my life.’ It makes you feel a slight chill.
GORE VIDAL

Feeling Life Man Yourself
The Turner Diaries’ is a racist daydream by a former physics teacher writing under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald.
GORE VIDAL

Race Teacher Writing
Anybody who is stupid enough to want to be remembered deserves to be forgotten right now.
GORE VIDAL

Deserve Enough Stupidity
To a man, ornithologists are tall, slender, and bearded so that they can stand motionless for hours, imitating kindly trees, as they watch for birds.
GORE VIDAL

Bird Man Stand Time
Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.
GORE VIDAL

Business Country Faith Fiction Lost Writing
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

We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.

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Popular Authors

We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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