Gore Vidal Quotes

It is notable how little empathy is cultivated or valued in our society. I put this down to our traditional racism and obsessive sectarianism. Even so, one would think that we would be encouraged to project ourselves into the character of someone of a different race or class, if only to be able to control him. But no effort is made.

[Professor] Frank recalled my idle remark some years ago: 'Never pass up the opportunity to have sex or appear on television.' Advice I would never give today in the age of AIDS and its television equivalent Fox News.

Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose. Any movement of a liberal nature endangers his authority and that of his delegates on earth. One God, one King, one Pope, one master in the factory, one father-leader in the family at home.

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.

It was of course Jefferson’s gift at one time or another to put with eloquence the “right” answer to every moral question. In practice, however, he seldom deviated from an opportunistic course, calculated to bring him power.

Of course his dust would be absorbed in other living things and to that degree at least he would exist again, though it was plain enough that the specific combination which was he would never exist again.

What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke?

As Seward did not understand the reference, he did not ask for an explanation. In any case, he had a constitutional dislike of being told things that he did not know, as opposed to ferreting them out.

As one gets older, litigation replaces sex.

World events are the work of individuals whose motives are often frivolous, even casual.

In fact, the French - who read and theorise the most - became so addicted to political experiment that in the two centuries since our own rather drab revolution they have exuberantly produced one Directory, one Consulate, two empires, three restorations of the monarchy, and five republics. That's what happens when you take writing too seriously.

The hatred Americans have for their own government is pathological, if understandable. At one level it is simply thwarted greed: since our religion is making a buck, giving a part of that buck to any government is an act against nature.

KRETON: Well, you know how one feels about history, the glamour of the past; I expected to hear everybody talking about great events—battles, poets, that kind of thing—but of course you don’t. You just squabble among yourselves.

Let the dust take me when the adventure's done and I shall make the dust glitter for all eternity with my marvelous fury.

ELLEN: Conrad’s a pacifist and willing to fight for it.