By 1939, the Depression was back. Unemployment was huge. Roosevelt didn't have any quick fix. Remember, the New Deal, Works Progress Administration, and Civilian Conservation Corps - all that happened years before. Roosevelt was riding a storm.
Gore Vidal
Related I think Stalin was afraid of Roosevelt. Whenever Roosevelt spoke, he sort of watched him with a cert... W. AVERELL HARRIMAN Few expected very much of Franklin Roosevelt on Inauguration Day in 1933. Like Barack Obama seventy-... RUSSELL BAKER Eleanor Roosevelt, during the years that she was first lady had a home at Washington Square park in ... CARL ANTHONY Eleanor Roosevelt, during the years that she was first lady had a home at Washington Square park in ... CARL SFERRAZZA ANTHONY There's a myth that Roosevelt gave Stalin Eastern Europe. I was with Roosevelt every day at Yalt... W. AVERELL HARRIMAN He was very impressed with Theodore Roosevelt, and Teddy Roosevelt used to say 'you have to get into... EVELYN FOX When women were excluded from New Deal programs, Eleanor Roosevelt fought to include them. Roosevelt... LAEL BRAINARD One might have thought that 70 years was time enough to work out what really happened in 1939. It is... NORMAN DAVIES The rules only applied to people who couldn’t afford different rules. CAMERON STRACHER I'm not comparing myself to Bobby Kennedy by any stretch, but he was opposed by the liberal esta... HAROLD FORD, JR. I was born during the Depression in a little community just outside Waco, and I grew up listening to... ANN RICHARDS Taft was Roosevelt's handpicked successor. I didn't know how deep the friendship was between... DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk abo... JOE BIDEN Teddy Roosevelt of course was a great outdoorsman all his life. GAYLORD NELSON I think one of the lessons of the Depression - and this is something that Franklin Roosevelt demonst... BEN BERNANKE Roosevelt was determined to stop Stalin from taking over Eastern Europe. He thought they finally had... W. AVERELL HARRIMAN I don't want to go negative on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but he didn't pass an economic dea... RAHM EMANUEL This was a gift from the ex-president Teddy Roosevelt. KEITH GREENE To the conservation community, this is sacred ground. This is where the whole concept of conservatio... LOWELL BAIER Leadership is absolutely vital if there are comparable countries which can affect the security of th... HENRY KISSINGER America did not have an air arm at all. So their quick fix was to contract with all of the 100-plus ... HERBERT CARTER It's so funny looking back, but my so-called overnight success actually took 15 years. I remembe... CRISS ANGEL Before, I was really passive, all I cared about was being in love with my boyfriend. I didn't ha... GWEN STEFANI Franklin Roosevelt was very concerned about environmental issues. GAYLORD NELSON When I was in the Peace Corps I never made a phone call. I was in Central Africa; I didn't make ... PAUL THEROUX The bulkheads were close together, the ceilings low above their helmets. Not much space in there to ... CHRISTINA ENGELA Dillinger at one point was the second most popular man in America after President Roosevelt. And he ... MICHAEL MANN Roosevelt was a big collector -- stamps, models. His whole house was brimming with stuff. BENJAMIN HUFBAUER Roosevelt spoke eloquently, in his penetrating tenor, of those 'who at this very moment are denied t... SUSAN QUINN In the sixties, everyone you knew became famous. My flatmate was Terence Stamp. My barber was Vidal ... MICHAEL CAINE Lincoln made mistakes. Roosevelt made mistakes. Eisenhower made mistakes. The Battle of the Bulge wa... RUDY GIULIANI I always look back at when I didn't have a dream, when I didn't have a spirit. I didn't ... BOB BEAMON I was a huge Bowie fan since I was 12 years old. That was the first 'punk' rock I got into i... BUZZ OSBORNE I was helped by having a verbatim memory of what happened years ago, even if I can't remember wh... JAMES HERRIOT Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my... JACKSON POLLOCK This isn't just about today, this about generations to come. And you've got a chance to be t... BRUCE BABBITT And the day came out... the mask was removed... and who was behind it? ... No Face... a pe... DEYTH BANGER Well my briefing was that Honduras was a small and vulnerable country just back on the path towards ... JOHN NEGROPONTE Remember, the Arctic didn't have any ice. And the Northwest Passage was wide open. They were rai... DON YOUNG I was a sailor. I was torpedoed, spent two weeks in a lifeboat. I was on the Murmansk run; I worked ... HASKELL WEXLER First lady has been a thankless position. Eleanor Roosevelt was brilliant and had strong views. She ... KAREN DECROW To meet Roosevelt with all his buoyant sparkle, his iridescence, was like opening a bottle of champa... WINSTON CHURCHILL I was a model for eight years. That's the deal: People look. But I didn't like being looked ... BEAU GARRETT The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mis... MILTON FRIEDMAN I was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) and obsessive-compulsive di... HOWIE MANDEL I think as the century closes draws to a close and we look back on public figures, ... we realize wh... ELEANOR ROOSEVELT She Eleanor Roosevelt got even in a way that was almost cruel. She forgave them. RALPH MCGILL She (Eleanor Roosevelt) got even in a way that was almost cruel. She forgave them. RALPH MCGILL She [Eleanor Roosevelt] got even in a way that was almost cruel. She forgave them. RALPH MCGILL It's fair to infer that going back many years, and certainly extending all the way through this admi... CHRIS COX Gore Vidal has been a friend of mine for years, and he's one of the greatest writers in American... CYBILL SHEPHERD As a child, I personally didn't really get to know any Jews. I was eight years old when the Nigh... HELMUT KOHL I didn't know Charlie before doing the movie, but I was a huge fan of the British Queer as Folk. NATHAN LANE I was a weird teenager. My mother was actually worried because I didn't have any interest in dat... KIESZA I have a strong memory of the day I was told that my father had a weak heart and that he had to go t... ALAN J. HEEGER During the 1937 congressional election campaign, Johnson's group probably paid $5,000 to Elliott... ROBERT DALLEK 'A Walk to Remember' was a huge movie for me. I thought Mandy Moore was the coolest thing th... BRITT ROBERTSON You could argue that Barack Obama faced in '08 a situation as bad as any president since the Gre... TONY KUSHNER When I first started making music, I didn't really know what I was doing. I just wanted to write... JULIANA HATFIELD And people talk about the stimulus package and the jobs that it was supposed to create, it certainly... KRISTI NOEM She got even in a way that was almost cruel. She forgave them. on Eleanor
Roosevelt. RALPH MCGILL Aesthetically, we were enormously successful. Economically... there was no success. It was all about... WAYNE KRAMER You have to remember that coaching wasn't sophisticated back then - you didn't have the camp... BOB COUSY If Stephen King was a killer, he will be the best killer ever existed, check out his novels, check o... DEYTH BANGER I didn't have any friends. I was bullied. I didn't play sports. DACRE MONTGOMERY I was born in 1953, so that's the Eisenhower administration. LINCOLN CHAFEE Roosevelt was the one who had the vision to change our policy from isolationism to world leadership.... W. AVERELL HARRIMAN Ronald Reagan is clearly to television what Franklin Roosevelt was to radio. DAVID R. GERGEN Ronald Reagan is clearly to television what Franklin Roosevelt was to radio. DAVID GERGEN There were so many versions out there, and he (Roosevelt) was bothered by it. He asked my father to ... FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT We was riding, the sun was shining and we were laughing and giggling, ... In comes a storm and five ... CHRIS CLARK I didn't have any role models really. My best friend was a dog. My mum and dad saved a dog from ... VILLE VALO I was desperate to go back to New York and when 9/11 happened, I feared moving to the bulls-eye and ... TEA LEONI I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn't bother with the oth... ANTHONY HOPKINS When I was in my twenties, it felt like I was riding wild horses, and I was hoping I didn't go o... CHAKA KHAN I was tormented with guilt for years and years. In fact, it was so bad that if I didn't feel wro... JOYCE MEYER Roosevelt's declaration that Americans had 'nothing to fear but fear itself' was a glori... RUSSELL BAKER I didn't make any friends in New York by insisting on moving the league headquarters to Cincinna... WARREN GILES The GRAMMY was a huge deal. It's the height of any musical career. TOMMY CHONG Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like dri... WINSTON CHURCHILL Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like dri... SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL My knowledge of the state of President Roosevelt's health was derived entirely from conversation... DAVID K. E. BRUCE 'Design Star' was incredible, and I didn't think it could get any better, and then '... DAVID BROMSTAD The promise of Social Security was reflected in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's inter-gene... CHRISTINE PELOSI I was discovered out of nowhere. I didn't have family that was in the industry. I didn't kno... BONNIE MCKEE I didn't have any success in show business until I was 30 to 31 years of age. ADAM CAROLLA I was just thinking back over the years and when I first came here. My first match as a freshman, al... ALEXIS GORDON I came to New York when I was eighteen years old, and the first audition that I ever went to was thi... KATE LEVERING What the president was referring to was the sense that, after the storm had initially passed, that t... SCOTT MCCLELLAN Alice Roosevelt Longworth was only a few years older than my mother but outlived her by a decade, dy... KATHARINE GRAHAM We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, rec... FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT My mum died of leukemia when I was in high school - she lost her life at 40. It was very hard, and I... CORY HARDRICT Because after my first year I had a lot of success, took everybody by storm, came back the next year... BRETT FAVRE It has had a tremendous impact on my life, more than on the life of most Prize winners, because I wa... JOHN FORBES NASH, JR. I met (Franklin) Roosevelt once on the back of a train, BOB EDWARDS As a kid, I was so short, it was tough for me to keep up with the taller guys. I always had quick fe... CARL HAGELIN The 12 years I was in Fleetwood Mac before were not particularly happy years. I was not in a very go... LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM One of the hardest to complete was Teddy Roosevelt and I think it was because of the location and be... GERARD BAKER Dad worked in a warehouse when I was little and I didn't see him for three years as he was doing... JENNIFER ELLISON Franklin Roosevelt was a great leader. He saw how to use the levers of power to affect change. PETE DU PONT
More Gore Vidal
Having no contemporaries left means you cannot say, 'Well, so-and-so will like this,' which ... GORE VIDAL McCain is significant in the sense that he has no significance at all on any subject. GORE VIDAL I can understand companionship. GORE VIDAL Of all recent presidents, Clinton was expected to behave the most sensibly in economic matters. He u... GORE VIDAL The first grown-up book that I read on my own was a nineteenth-century edition of 'Tales from Li... GORE VIDAL I'm not paranoid, no. I'm different in that I have enemies. Very real ones. GORE VIDAL What is in question is a kind of book reviewing which seems to be more and more popular: the loose p... GORE VIDAL The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country - and we haven't seen them ... GORE VIDAL As for civil liberties, any one who is not vigilant may one day find himself living, if not in a pol... GORE VIDAL The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No Fi... GORE VIDAL At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation and prejudice. GORE VIDAL Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some eviden... GORE VIDAL Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale. GORE VIDAL I could be a lot happier. I could be the senator from Aerospace taking bribes, and be quite happy. GORE VIDAL I find in most novels no imagination at all. They seem to think the highest form of the novel is to ... GORE VIDAL Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith. GORE VIDAL Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that stillness witho... GORE VIDAL Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps twenty players, an... GORE VIDAL That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness... GORE VIDAL Never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television. GORE VIDAL For half a century photography has been the "art form" of the untalented. Obviously some pictures ar... GORE VIDAL Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is... GORE VIDAL Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence... GORE VIDAL Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences. GORE VIDAL It is difficult to find a reputable American historian who will acknowledge the crude fact that a Fr... GORE VIDAL I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television. GORE VIDAL There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo -- or heterosex... GORE VIDAL Sex is. There is nothing more to be done about it. Sex builds no roads, writes no novels and sex cer... GORE VIDAL The more money an American accumulates, the less interesting he becomes. GORE VIDAL Never have children, only grand children. GORE VIDAL Great critics do not explicate a text; they describe it and then report on what they have described,... GORE VIDAL I'm exactly as I appear. There is no warm lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you ... GORE VIDAL When Ronald Reagan's career in show business came to an end, he was hired to impersonate, first, a C... GORE VIDAL How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time... GORE VIDAL There is hardly an American male of my generation who has not at one time or another tried to master... GORE VIDAL Of course, it is possible for any citizen with time to spare, and a canny eye, to work out what is a... GORE VIDAL The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western World. No Fi... GORE VIDAL For half a century, photography has been the art form of the untalented. Obviously some pictures are... GORE VIDAL As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to ill... GORE VIDAL There is something about a bureaucrat that does not like a poem. GORE VIDAL If most men and women were forced to rely upon physical charm to attract lovers, their sexual lives ... GORE VIDAL Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But the... GORE VIDAL Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues an... GORE VIDAL Laughing at someone else is an excellent way of learning how to laugh at oneself; and questioning wh... GORE VIDAL It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, no matter how suspect, is superior to any imag... GORE VIDAL Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies. GORE VIDAL In America, the race goes to the loud, the solemn, the hustler. If you think you're a great writer, ... GORE VIDAL To a man, ornithologists are tall, slender, and bearded so that they can stand motionless for hours,... GORE VIDAL I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults. GORE VIDAL If most men and women were forced to rely upon physical charm to attract lovers, their sexual live... GORE VIDAL Half the American population no longer reads newspapers: plainly, they are the clever half. GORE VIDAL Style is knowing who you are, what to say, and not giving a damn. GORE VIDAL All the other candidates are making speeches about how much they have done for their country, which ... GORE VIDAL Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence t... GORE VIDAL It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we... GORE VIDAL It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail. GORE VIDAL I'm a born-again atheist. GORE VIDAL Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes i... GORE VIDAL There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise. GORE VIDAL Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies. GORE VIDAL It is true, as Sartre once wrote, referring to French Army atrocities in Algeria, that the real trag... GORE VIDAL We are the United States of Amnesia, which is encouraged by a media that has no desire to tell us th... GORE VIDAL For every Scott Fitzgerald concerned with the precise word and the selection of relevant incident, t... GORE VIDAL On 16 September 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a deb... GORE VIDAL Washington turned a blind eye to Al-Qaeda. GORE VIDAL Because there is no cosmic point to the life that each of us perceives on this distant bit of dust a... GORE VIDAL I am a novelist turned temporary adventurer, and I chose to write television, movies and plays for m... GORE VIDAL I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults. GORE VIDAL Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn. GORE VIDAL The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning th... GORE VIDAL Write something, even if it's just a suicide note. GORE VIDAL As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to ill... GORE VIDAL There is only one party in the United States: the Property party... and it has two right wings: Repu... GORE VIDAL To invent a war means that you've become a wartime president, and you can suspend much if not al... GORE VIDAL It's always best to stay out of other people's divorces. And their civil wars. GORE VIDAL Until the rise of American advertising, it never occurred to anyone anywhere in the world that the t... GORE VIDAL I am told the Cheney-Bush team dislikes their junta being compared to the Nazis. If they ceased beha... GORE VIDAL Walter Lippmann suggests that the United States behaves like a society which thinks it is complete w... GORE VIDAL Fortunately, our audiences are used to a kind of boredom in the theatre, and if the writer is skillf... GORE VIDAL Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But the... GORE VIDAL Jack Kennedy very much enjoyed Fletcher Knebel's thriller 'Seven Days in May,' later a f... GORE VIDAL Each youth betrays considerable anxiety about the wedding night ahead. GORE VIDAL In August 1961, I visited President Kennedy at Hyannis Port. The Berlin Wall was going up, and he wa... GORE VIDAL I think I have a normal threshold of anger, but it's true that I am, by nature, belligerent. GORE VIDAL The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so. GORE VIDAL It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four per... GORE VIDAL Andy Warhol is the only genius I've ever known with an I.Q. of 60. GORE VIDAL No sooner does an American president take his oath of office than the speculation begins: Will he be... GORE VIDAL That loyal retainer of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the American president. GORE VIDAL Envy is the central fact of American life. GORE VIDAL I didn't mean to spend my life writing American history, which should have been taught in the sc... GORE VIDAL I'm not a conspiracy theorist - I'm a conspiracy analyst. GORE VIDAL By the end of World War II, we were the most powerful and least damaged of the great nations. We als... GORE VIDAL Temperamentally, I am suspicious of belonging to anything. When I ran for office, I debated seriousl... GORE VIDAL The greatest pleasure when I started making money was not buying cars or yachts but finding myself a... GORE VIDAL For certain people after 50, litigation takes the place of sex. GORE VIDAL It is not enough to succeed; others must fail. GORE VIDAL Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little. GORE VIDAL For certain people after fifty, litigation takes the place of sex. GORE VIDAL Television is now so desperately hungry for material that they're scraping the top of the barrel. GORE VIDAL I don't want prizes. I turned down the National Institute of Arts and Letters when I was elected to ... GORE VIDAL Young people are more hopeful at a certain age than adults, but I suspect that's glandular. As for c... GORE VIDAL I might be President by now if it weren't for this 'queer' thing GORE VIDAL Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn. GORE VIDAL Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualifi... GORE VIDAL A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is an ability to articulate human relationships. GORE VIDAL The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who... GORE VIDAL A narcissist is someone better looking than you are. GORE VIDAL All in all, I would not have missed this century for the world. GORE VIDAL The last best hope of earth, two trillion dollars in debt, is spinning out of control, and all we ca... GORE VIDAL Never have children, only grandchildren. GORE VIDAL It makes no difference whom you vote for -- the two parties are really one party representing four p... GORE VIDAL Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is ... GORE VIDAL I can understand companionship. I can understand bought sex in the afternoon. I cannot understand th... GORE VIDAL Whenever a friend succeeds a little something in me dies. GORE VIDAL Americans, in general, are ignorant, bigoted, and deeply unhappy with their declining incomes. GORE VIDAL Television is now so desparately hungry for material that they're scraping the top of the barrel. GORE VIDAL Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers... GORE VIDAL There's a lot to be said for being nouveau riche, and the Reagans mean to say it all. GORE VIDAL I'm exactly as I appear. There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once... GORE VIDAL I can't name three first-rate literary critics in the United States. I'm told there are a fe... GORE VIDAL I was raised in the Washington household of my grandfather Senator Thomas P. Gore of Oklahoma, and h... GORE VIDAL Now you have people in Washington who have no interest in the country at all. They're interested... GORE VIDAL I'm a fervent foe of water pollution, whether it is our own Hudson River or Philadelphia's t... GORE VIDAL He (Donald) is thorough and very careful not to take sides when there's insufficient evidence, GORE VIDAL Religions sprang up among men to deal with the sometimes terrifying aspects of existence, to make se... GORE VIDAL Rome... at its most decadent, had never thought of hiring an actor to go through the motions of bein... GORE VIDAL Now you have people in Washington who have no interest in the country at all. They're interested in ... GORE VIDAL Most writers write books that they wouldn't read. I ought to know; I've done it myself. GORE VIDAL The last best hope of earth, two trillion dollars in debt, is spinning out of control, and all we ca... GORE VIDAL All children alarm their parents, if only because you are forever expecting to encounter yourself. GORE VIDAL Didn't George Washington say, 'He who controls Afghanistan will carry New Jersey?' GORE VIDAL On September 5, 1774, forty-five of the weightiest colonial men formed the First Continental Congres... GORE VIDAL Overcrowding in the cities is producing a collective madness in which irrational violence flourishes... GORE VIDAL After the French Revolution, the world money power shifted from Paris to London. For three generatio... GORE VIDAL Jews, blacks and homosexuals are despised by the Christian and Communist majorities of East and West... GORE VIDAL The American press exists for one purpose only, and that is to convince Americans that they are livi... GORE VIDAL To preserve the human race, it is now necessary to reorganize society. To this end, an Authority mus... GORE VIDAL I don't even read most reviews, unless there is a potential lawsuit on view. GORE VIDAL The only thing that I react really violently to is being misquoted. GORE VIDAL 'The Turner Diaries' is a racist daydream by a former physics teacher writing under the pseu... GORE VIDAL Both Marx and Christ agree that in this life, a right action is consideration for the welfare of oth... GORE VIDAL I like the way you always manage to state the obvious with a sense of real discovery. GORE VIDAL The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning th... GORE VIDAL What the Kinseyites and I had in common so long ago was the knowledge that homosexual and heterosexu... GORE VIDAL There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexua... GORE VIDAL In the German concentration camps, Jews wore yellow stars while homosexuals wore pink lambdas. GORE VIDAL In America, the race goes to the loud, the solemn, the hustler. If you think you're a great writ... GORE VIDAL It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, no matter how suspect, is superior to any imag... GORE VIDAL Trust a nitwit society like this one to think that there are only two categories - fag and straight. GORE VIDAL Primarily, I am a prose writer with axes to grind, and the theatre is a good place to do the grindin... GORE VIDAL Fifty percent of people won't vote, and fifty percent don't read newspapers. I hope it's the same fi... GORE VIDAL Litigation takes the place of sex at middle age. GORE VIDAL What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke? GORE VIDAL If most men and women were forced to rely upon physical charm to attract lovers, their sexual lives ... GORE VIDAL These people [Bush Administration] are for the most part rip-off artists. Notice that they're all ga... GORE VIDAL The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttres... GORE VIDAL Andy Warhol is the only genius I've ever known with an I.Q. of 60. GORE VIDAL I don't see us winning the war. We have made enemies of one billion Muslims." GORE VIDAL roughly 80 percent of police work in the United States has to do with the regulation of our private ... GORE VIDAL I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults GORE VIDAL It is essential to naturalist doctrine that literature, to be good, must, finally, be the author'... GORE VIDAL I have always regarded as a stroke of good fortune that I was not born or brought up in a small Amer... GORE VIDAL Constant work, constant writing and constant revision. The real writer learns nothing from life. He ... GORE VIDAL Although Americans justify their self-interest in moral terms, their true interest is never itself m... GORE VIDAL There is something about the state putting the power to bully into the hands of subnormal, sadistic ... GORE VIDAL I’m not sentimental about anything. Life flows by, and you flow with it or you don’t. Move on an... GORE VIDAL I don't want anything. I don't want a job. I don't want to be respectable. I don't want prizes. I tu... GORE VIDAL Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose.... GORE VIDAL A current pejorative adjective is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking tha... GORE VIDAL I'm a born-again atheist GORE VIDAL We are the United States of Amnesia. GORE VIDAL Write something, even if it's just a suicide note. GORE VIDAL It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four per... GORE VIDAL I am an obsessive rewriter, doing one draft and then another and another, usually five. In a way, I ... GORE VIDAL That is New York. I pointed to the waterfront just ahead as if the city were mine. GORE VIDAL For certain people, after fifty, litigation takes the place of sex GORE VIDAL A court is the most depressing place on earth. Wherever there is a throne, one may observe in rich d... GORE VIDAL The truth about Pearl Harbour is obscured to this day. But it has been much studied. GORE VIDAL Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience al... GORE VIDAL To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religi... GORE VIDAL Since we have literally targeted our enemies, the Pentagon assumes that, sooner or later, rogues wil... GORE VIDAL I sometimes think it is because they are so bad at expressing themselves verbally that writers take ... GORE VIDAL World War II made prosperous the United States, which had been undergoing a depression for a dozen y... GORE VIDAL To a born-again atheist like myself, it is clear that each of us has multiple selves, talents, perce... GORE VIDAL Remember, I'm West Point, where I was born. My father went there. GORE VIDAL Europe began as the relatively empty, uncivilized Wild West of Asia; then the Western Hemisphere bec... GORE VIDAL Everything's wrong on Wikipedia. GORE VIDAL You hear all this whining going on, 'Where are our great writers?' The thing I might feel do... GORE VIDAL Life will be wonderful when men no longer fear dying. When the last superstitions are thrown out and... GORE VIDAL Even a child could see the division between what the Galileans [i.e., Christians] say they believe a... GORE VIDAL Ayn Rand is a rhetorician who writes novels I have never been able to read. GORE VIDAL Television is now so desperately hungry for material that they're scraping the top of the barrel... GORE VIDAL The Pentagon talks about our power to 'overkill' Russia ten times, twenty times, perhaps for... GORE VIDAL The behaviour of President Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to not unnatural suspicions. GORE VIDAL In classical times, it was a capital offense to speculate upon the hour of a king's death or upo... GORE VIDAL My memory plays me odd tricks these days [...] Age spares us nothing, old friend. Like ancient trees... GORE VIDAL ...is not all philosophy but preparation for a serene dying? GORE VIDAL The failure of Hellenism has been, largely, a matter of organization. Rome never tried to impose any... GORE VIDAL But like so many others nowadays, poor Julian wanted to believe that man's life is profoundly more s... GORE VIDAL