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Americans, in general, are ignorant, bigoted, and deeply unhappy with their declining incomes.

Gore Vidal

World War II made prosperous the United States, which had been undergoing a depression for a dozen years, and made very rich those magnates and their managers who govern the republic – with many a wink – in the people’s name.
GORE VIDAL

Depression Government Manager Name People Public Rich War
I cannot remember when I was not fascinated by Henry Adams.
GORE VIDAL

Fascination Myself Remember
Until the rise of American advertising, it never occurred to anyone anywhere in the world that the teenager was a captive in a hostile world of adults.
GORE VIDAL

Adult Advertise Captive Rise World
Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.
GORE VIDAL

Candidate Democracy Issues Place
Americans have no idea of the extent of their government’s mischief… the number of military strikes we have made unprovoked, against other countries, since 1947 is more than 250.
GORE VIDAL

Age Country Government Ideas Mischief Provoke Strike
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
History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true.
GORE VIDAL

Gossip History Hope Past True
We’re not a democracy.
GORE VIDAL

Democracy One Liner
There’s a lot to be said for being nouveau riche, and the Reagans mean to say it all.
GORE VIDAL

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

Delicate Friendship President
Gossip is conversation about people.
GORE VIDAL

Conversation Gossip People
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

Artist Discover Emotion Important Known World
Temperamentally, I am suspicious of belonging to anything. When I ran for office, I debated seriously whether or not to run as an independent because I was not eager to be saddled with the Democratic Party, because any party label is committing.
GORE VIDAL

Commitment Democracy Government Independent Party Politics Serious
Corporations must pay tax.
GORE VIDAL

Corporation Pay Tax
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
The truth about Pearl Harbour is obscured to this day. But it has been much studied.
GORE VIDAL

Day Study Truth Unknown
I was raised in the Washington household of my grandfather Senator Thomas P. Gore of Oklahoma, and have known politicians intimately all my life.
GORE VIDAL

Childhood Home Life Myself Politician Raise
I never wanted to be a writer. I mean, that’s the last thing I wanted.
GORE VIDAL

Dream Myself Writing
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
It is true, as Sartre once wrote, referring to French Army atrocities in Algeria, that the real tragedy in our time is that any of us can be, interchangeably, victim or torturer.
GORE VIDAL

Change Reality Time Torture Victim
In writing and politicking, it’s best not to think about it, just do it.
GORE VIDAL

Best Thinking 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
Envy is the central fact of American life.
GORE VIDAL

Central Fact Life
I never said I was gay, because I don’t think anyone is.
GORE VIDAL

Myself Sexuality Thinking
Actually, I can’t remember when I was not writing.
GORE VIDAL

Myself Remember Writing
Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.
GORE VIDAL

Confidence Personality Style Yourself
The Pentagon talks about our power to ‘overkill’ Russia ten times, twenty times, perhaps forty-eight times. For my tax money, it is sufficient to overkill them once.
GORE VIDAL

Money Talk Tax Time

Americans, in general, are ignorant, bigoted, and deeply unhappy with their declining incomes.

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Americans, in general, are ignorant, bigoted, and deeply unhappy with their declining incomes.

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