Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps twenty players, and Tennessee Williams has about five, and Samuel Beckett one - and maybe a clone of that one. I have ten or so, and that's a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.
Gore Vidal
Related I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES You're still lovely," Mor said a bit gently. Elain offered a half smile. "I suppose that war m... SARAH J. MAAS Because death is the only thing that could have ever kept him from you. ALLY CARTER Gore Vidal has been a friend of mine for years, and he's one of the greatest writers in American... CYBILL SHEPHERD When a lot of voices, make up a noise, the man who is silent represents a voice. APURVA GAGLANI The issue isn't whether he loved you, it's how much. Too much. Love can be poison SARAH J. MAAS I am broken and healing, but every piece of my heart belong to you. SARAH J. MAAS He thinks he'll be remembered as the villain in the story. But I forgot to tell him that the villain... SARAH J. MAAS Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold ... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN Hodor," said Hodor. GEORGE R.R. MARTIN You do what you love, what you need SARAH J. MAAS I turned. Rhysand leaned against the archway into the sitting room, arms crossed, wings nowhere... SARAH J. MAAS Curran's whore comes to visit us," Jarek said in accented English. The three men laughed ... ILONA ANDREWS Bhulaney ke liay bhi tujhy yaad tu kerna hoga, Magar her yaad se hain wabasta teri hazaar baata... HUSEYN RAZA Perhaps because my background is theatrical, I have a great affinity with the classics. Hamlet has a... ADHIR KALYAN I still get a lot of material but I find that as one gets older you get more fussy. You know you'... NORMAN JEWISON He wanted to argue like this forever. This was better than nothing. There was no exhausting his ange... DAVID DUCHOVNY Daring to dream is not difficult, it's making them come true that is hard... NANETTE L. AVERY When you listen and read one thinker, you become a clone… two thinkers, you become confused… ten... TIMOTHY J. KELLER I have three older brothers, and each one of them has chosen one of my parents' education. Two o... BILL SKARSGARD She made a fence of phrases, which seemed a treachery to herself. ELIZABETH TAYLOR You are the blood of the dragon. You can make a hat. GEORGE R.R. MARTIN I love you every day. And now I will miss you every day. MITCH ALBOM I realized that day that blessings come in a variety of shapes, colors, and sizes. CRAIG GROESCHEL She was scarcely a year older than I was, dark-haired, slender, with a face that would break your he... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN That's why Tennessee Williams was a great writer. Poetically, dramatically, it was fantastic stu... CIARAN HINDS I want to share this bed with you, though," I breathed. "I want you to hold me." Stars flicker... SARAH J. MAAS As you get older, you either become proactive about staying in shape and taking care of yourself, or... MIKE LOVE History is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN I began by saying that our history will be what we make it. If we go on as we are, then history will... EDWARD R. MURROW I worked with Joe at the Eagles and the one thing you can say is that his players always excel. Joe ... SEAN PAYTON I was not a pet, not a doll, not an animal. I was a survivor, and I was strong. I would no... SARAH J. MAAS I sipped from my wine. "And if he had grabbed me?" There was nothing but uncompromising w... SARAH J. MAAS There you are. I've been looking for you. His first words to me— not a lie at a... SARAH J. MAAS I was not prey any longer, I decided as I eased up to that door. And I was not a mouse. I ... SARAH J. MAAS No one was my master— but I might be master of everything, if I wished. If I dared. SARAH J. MAAS He drained his glass. "I made a mistake." "It's not the end of the world if you do that every n... SARAH J. MAAS I will kill anyone who harms you," Rhys snarled. "I will kill them, and take a damn long time doing ... SARAH J. MAAS Julia poured tea gracefully, but it all ran over into the saucers. ELIZABETH TAYLOR The next day, the villages came closer together until the beginnings and endings could no longer be ... PATRICK W. CARR It appeared to Harriet that she was always the one who remembered having seen other people. They nev... ELIZABETH TAYLOR Would you like me to grovel with gratitude for bringing me here, High Lord?" "Ah. The Suriel to... SARAH J. MAAS Show me a person who hasn´t known any sorrow and I´ll show you a superficial. TENNESSEE WILLIAMS There are approximately two trillion cells in the human body. You are never alone, there are always ... DWIGHT W. HAYES I felt a numb shock as I drove home anxious to get my chocolate flowers and wondering how my mother ... JORI NUNES I'm not saying that I'm better than anyone... I'm just saying that I'm one-of-a-kind. C LIONG But I've got a lot of ideas, I bought me a ranch in Florida and I still have my farm in Ashland ... MEL TILLIS To everyone battling a difficulty or under attack right now, smile, keep your head up, keep moving a... GERMANY KENT A person with a hundred interests is twice as alive as one with only fifty and four times as alive a... NORMAN VINCENT PEALE Mark always told India that she is an amazing athlete and he is right. Not only is she athletic but ... KELLY ROWLAND oh. she heard it too-no waters coursing, canyon empty, sun soundless- ... BARBARA BLATNER I could simply kill you now, get it over with, who would know the difference... BARBARA BLATNER ...gripping the rim of the sink you claw your way to stand and cling there, ... BARBARA BLATNER I think with '10 Things I Hate About You,' I was an angsty teenager, and in some ways, I res... JULIA STILES When everyone has a microphone, you can't hear anything. Choose one voice carefully and listen in. RICHIE NORTON I think the Tennessee Lottery has really helped the Tennessee schools. A lot more than Kentucky. It'... JENNIFER WRIGHT Each man lives in his own universe and when he dies the world is over BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA What you get with Disney is a low stock valuation on a company that I think will have forward earnin... LARRY HAVERTY Be gentle and forbearing with one another and, if one has a difference(a grievance or complaint) aga... JOYCE MEYER As you get older you have more respect and empathy for your parents. Now I have a great relationship... HUGH JACKMAN Here is one fact 1 minute to finish the class, 1 day to die, one day behind that fact, one day in th... DEYTH BANGER Not only is Coach Pearl one of the very best coaches in the nation, but more importantly, he has bec... JOHN PETERSEN That boy had wanted to be Ser Arthur Dayne, but someplace along the way he had become the Smiling Kn... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN One really beautiful wrist motion, that is synchronised with your head and heart, and you have it. I... HELEN FRANKENTHALER If an artist has five or six or seven albums in his or her catalog, a lot of times many retailers ar... JEFF JONES They say that a part of you dies when a special Loved One passes away...I disagree...I say a part of... DANIEL YANEZ When you lose someone untimely; all left is never ending guilt, fear, and pain. NIKITA DUDANI As goods become more standardized - and mass production has that effect, standardizing product - the... STANLEY MARCUS I've done maybe twelve of Shakespeare's plays. I was with the Royal Shakespeare Company for ... CHARLES DANCE I hope that 9/11 has grouped us as one, and in doing so it has united us. Perhaps as a unit we can h... DOUG DAVIDSON We're freaks, the two of us, Franny and I. I'm a twenty-five-year-old freak and she's a twenty-one-y... J.D. SALINGER Each year has been so robust with problems and successes and learning experiences and human experien... STEVE JOBS Deep down a broken heart, all the sadness one can bear is misery. OSCAR AULIQ-ICE There are ten abilities, but no one has more than one—except me. I’m different that way. I have�... QUOLEENA SBROCCA I really think the acoustics that Gibson's been making for the last ten years or so are as good as a... BILL MUMY I've learned a lot about my voice, and about things I can do with it. Maybe that's why my so... CHELY WRIGHT Language is my whore, my mistress, my wife, my pen-friend, my check-out girl. Language is a complime... STEPHEN FRY To the people who look at the stars and wish, Rhys." Rhys clinked his glass against mine. “To... SARAH J. MAAS Males are horrible creatures, aren’t they? SARAH J. MAAS When you spend so long trapped in darkness, you find that the darkness begins to stare back. SARAH J. MAAS Many atrocities, have been done in the name of the greater good. SARAH J. MAAS Aemon’s blind white eyes came open. “Egg?” he said, as the rain streamed down his cheeks. “E... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN But I forgot to tell him,” I said quietly, opening the door, “that the villain is usually the pe... SARAH J. MAAS I played the cello from when I was ten, and then I bought a guitar from the father of some friends o... JAMES TAYLOR Maybe thats what hell is. You go mad, and all your demonds come and get you just as fast as you can ... ANNE RICE One word absent from a sentence, or misinterpreted incorrectly, can change the entire meaning of a s... SUZY KASSEM Discovering Samuel Beckett in college was a big deal for me. I realized you could be very funny and ... BILLY COLLINS Older men are wiser and that is much cooler to me. I've never been one for going out clubbing or... EMILIA FOX You can easily find people who are ten times as rich at sixty as they were at twenty; but not one of... GEORGE BERNARD SHAW I hope that 9/11 has grouped us as one, and in doing so it has united us. Perhaps as a unit we can h... DOUG DAVIDSON I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing ... JOHN MUIR Matty blinked. 'You're passing up whips for shopping ?' 'You're bitching about ... LETA BLAKE why do people rise and fall.. How and when they will get the attentions and why politicians fall whe... SHARIF MOHAMED Fred Zinnemann, on From Here To Eternity and The Sundowners really brings out of me, in a completely... DEBORAH KERR They need to understand they have to do something post secondary. Work is inevitable. They have to p... DEBORAH KERR Everybody looks at records, but a lot of coaches look at how far you have come. This team has made i... BRETT NORRIS The big thing as a coach at this time of year is you convince your players there are no more upsets ... BOB WEINHAUER Money comes with a price, and for me, the price is both freedom and a real life. SAVI SHARMA Nowadays, a critic has to watch 700, 800 films a year, and I know through experience, being a juror ... ALEJANDRO GONZALEZ INARRITU What is so wonderful about the top four is each one has a different style. It's going to become a ma... FRANK CARROLL
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 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 By 1939, the Depression was back. Unemployment was huge. Roosevelt didn't have any quick fix. Re... 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