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It is essential to naturalist doctrine that literature, to be good, must, finally, be the author’s experience worked out literally.

Gore Vidal

The United States is a madhouse.
GORE VIDAL

Country Home Madness State
What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke?
GORE VIDAL

Culture Joke Production See
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 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
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
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
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
Europe began as the relatively empty, uncivilized Wild West of Asia; then the Western Hemisphere became the Wild West of Europe. Now the sun has set in our West and risen once more in the East.
GORE VIDAL

Beginning Europe Ourselves Sun
The behaviour of President Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to not unnatural suspicions.
GORE VIDAL

Natural President Rise Suspicion
One is sorry one could not have taken both branches of the road. But we were not allotted multiple selves.
GORE VIDAL

Choice Journey Oneself Road
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
I never wanted to be a writer. I mean, that’s the last thing I wanted.
GORE VIDAL

Dream Myself Writing
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
TV news is not very instructive.
GORE VIDAL

Instruction One Liner
To invent a war means that you’ve become a wartime president, and you can suspend much if not all of the Bill of Rights.
GORE VIDAL

Invention President Suspend War
I’m exactly as I appear. There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water.
GORE VIDAL

Appearance Cold Love Warm Water Yourself

It is essential to naturalist doctrine that literature, to be good, must, finally, be the author’s experience worked out literally.

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It is essential to naturalist doctrine that literature, to be good, must, finally, be the author’s experience worked out literally.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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