Gore Vidal Quotes

American writer (1925–2012)

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Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (born Eugene Louis Vidal; (3 October 1925 – 31 July 2012), was an American writer of novels, essays, screenplays, and stage plays.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Pen Names: Edgar Box

Alternative Names: Eugene Luther Gore Vidal • Gor Vidal • Cameron Kay • Eugene Luther Vidal • Katherine Everard • Eugene Vidal

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No one can ever love us quite so much as we love ourselves.

I say his version because there is no such thing as a true account of anything. Each sees the world from his own vantage point. Needless to say, a throne is not the best place from which to view anything except the backs of prostrate men.

Once people get hung up on theology, they've lost sanity forever. More people have been killed in the name of Jesus Christ than any other name in the history of the world.

The worst thing to happen to Lincoln - aside from the unfortunate incident at Ford's theatre - was to fall into the hands of Carl Sandburg.

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.

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

anyone who sings about love and harmony and life [john lennon] is dangerous to someone who sings about death and killing and subduing [Nixon]

The public is always relieved to find that once the chief officers of state are elected they do not sincerely want change.

Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 players. … I have 10 or so, and that’s a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.

"Is it not better for a man never to have been born?"
"Certaintly not" The response was brisk. "Just to be able to study the sky is reason enough to be alive."
"Unfortunately, I can't see the sky."
"Then listen to music."

Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.

It is curious how little interested we are in the sexual desires of those who do not attract us.

A court is the most depressing place on earth. Wherever there is a throne, one may observe in rich detail every folly and wickedness of which man is capable, enameled with manners and gilded with hypocrisy.

Whether he knows it or not, the middle-income American is taxed as though he were living in a socialist society.

…the American reader cannot bear a surprise. He knows that this is the greatest country on earth…and evidence to the contrary is not admissible. That means no inconvenient facts, no new information. If you really want the reader’s attention, you must flatter him. Make his prejudices your own. Tell him things he already knows. He will love your soundness.