Gore Vidal Quotes

Religions sprang up among men to deal with the sometimes terrifying aspects of existence, to make sense out of the senseless, to explain things we find inexplicable.

Rome ... at its most decadent, had never thought of hiring an actor to go through the motions of being an emperor while the Praetorian Guard ruled.

I'm in favor of any form of sexual relationship that gives pleasure to those involved. And I have never heard a convincing argument to the contrary.

Who gives a damn about being remembered? That's really for amateurs.

Anybody, at any time, may equally find himself victim or executioner.

Where there is no desire or pursuits, there is no wholeness. But there are satisfying lesser states, fragments.

You can improve your talent, but your talent is a given, a mysterious constant. You must make it the best of its kind.

Now the long-feared Asiatic colossus takes its turn as world leader, and we--the white race--have become the yellow man's burden.Let us hope that he will treat us more kindly than we treated him.

Once people get hung up on theology, they've lost sanity forever.

Monotheism is easily the greatest disaster to befall the human race.

I like Italy. I was always at home there, it's a marvelous place to become invisible. Nobody bothers you and nobody is interested in you and I find that very good for work.

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

One of the most fascinating aspects of politician-watching is trying to determine to what extent any politician believes what he says.

CO₂ emissions anywhere threaten civilisation everywhere.

Before the cards that one is dealt by life are the cards that fate has dealt: one's family.

American laws don't work, but at least the laws of physics might work.

I believe it's my pastoral duty to convert friends to atheism.

One's neighbor is always the enemy. That is the nature of things.

We are given our place in time as we are given our eyes: weak, strong, clear, squinting, the thing is not ours to choose. Well, this has been a squinting, walleyed time to be born in.

Television is a great leveler. You always end up sounding like the people who ask the questions.

Baum (Writer of THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ) was a true educator, and those who read his Oz books are often made what they were not-imaginative , tolerant, alert to wonders, life.

I write in different styles because I hear different voices in my head. It would be boring to have always the same voice, point of view.

I came out of Capitol Hill. Well, that's just not an ordinary background for a writer of the ordinary American sort.

I'd like to see a revival of state legislatures, in which I am a true Jeffersonian.

Everything's wrong on Wikipedia.

Love, like a sense of humor, is now claimed by everyone even though Love, like a sense of humor, is rather more rare than not, and to most of us poor muddlers unbearable at full strength.

It is reasonable to assume that, by and large, what is not read now will not be read, ever. It is also reasonable to assume that practically nothing that is read now will be read later.

All Americans born between 1890 and 1945 wanted to be movie stars.

For true happiness, it is not enough to be successful oneself . . . one's friends must fail.

A superficial education would be worse than none. But a full education would open every man's eyes to the nature of human existence.

Nonprofit status is what created the Bible Belt. The tax code brought religion back to this country.

I suppose that one is always tempted to challenge those who think that they and they alone possess the truth or the way or the key to the mystery.

If the splitter of hairs has a sharp enough knife, the fact of life itself can be chopped into nothing.

By and large, serious fiction was the work of victims who portrayed victims for an audience of victims who, it was oddly assumed, would want to see their lives realistically portrayed.

The only absolute attainment is absolute abandonment.

My family helped start [this country], we've been in political life ... since the 1690s, and I have a very possessive sense about this country.

God, or what have you, will not be found at the far end of a syllogism, no matter how brilliantly phrased or conceived.

People in my situation get to read about themselves whether they want to or not. It's generally wrong. Or oversimplified - which is sometimes useful.

It never occurred to any Enlightenment figure in the eighteenth century that law was not preferable to man.

Then die. We must all do that. But die, as they say, game.

People have forgotten the effects of prohibition. We have become the United Statesof Amnesia.

Truman Capote has made lying an art. A minor art.

I don't see us winning the war. We have made enemies of one billion Muslims.

I was brought up to believe that what is out-of-doors should stay there and not be encouraged in any way.

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

I do not much care for nature, and believe that flowers belong in vases rather than loose and untidy on the ground.

Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!

The oligarchs think that the people are both dangerous and stupid. Their point is moot. But we do know that the oligarchs are a good deal more dangerous to the polity than the people at large.

In a society like ours, politics is improvisation. To the artful dodger rather than the true believer goes the prize.

The first TV babies are now writing with a TV mind that has no attention span at all.