Gore Vidal Quotes

There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.

a writer must always tell the truth (unless he's a journalist)

History is idle gossip about a happening whose truth is lost the instant it has taken place.

As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.

It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.

Southerners make good novelists: they have so many stories because they have so much family.

Love is a fan club with only two fans.

We affect one another quite enough merely by existing. Whenever the stars cross, or is it comets? fragments pass briefly from one orbit to another. On rare occasions there is total collision, but most often the two simply continue without incident, neither losing more than a particle to the other, in passing.

Traitors who prevail are patriots; usurpers who succeed are divine emperors.

There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.

The most interesting thing about writing is the way that it obliterates time. Three hours seem like three minutes. Then there is the business of surprise. I never know what is coming next. The phrase that sounds in the head changes when it appears on the page. Then I start probing it with a pen, finding new meanings. Sometimes I burst out laughing at what is happening as I twist and turn sentences. Strange business, all in all. One never gets to the end of it. That’s why I go on, I suppose. To see what the next sentences I write will be.

As I looked back over my life, I realized that I enjoyed nothing — not art, not sex — more than going to the movies.

Never offend an enemy in a small way.

I suspect that one of the reasons we create fiction is to make sex exciting.

On the throne of the world, any delusion can become fact.