My father once said something very shrewd about me to a woman journalist who had told him how courageous she thought I was for always speaking my mind. My father said, 'If you couldn't care less what anyone says about you, then it's not courage.'
Gore Vidal
Related My father thought sport was something fun - he didn't know it was a way to make money. Then I wo... HAILE GEBRSELASSIE I asked my girlfriend, 'Will you marry me?' She said, 'We'll have to ask my father.&... EMO PHILIPS Jem told me what Ragnor Fell said about my father,” Will said. “That for my father, there was on... CASSANDRA CLARE And I asked my mother about it; I said, 'Is there something wrong?' She said, 'God... Go... RICHARD DAWSON My father always said, 'I don't care if you're a ditch digger, as long as you're the... TWYLA THARP I got a note from my father, who said that Success is wonderful, if you don't inhale. That was h... SAM WATERSTON My father left... but I tell my mom - and I told my mom this when I was a kid - I said, 'You kno... J. R. MARTINEZ My sister Tiffany told me years ago, 'You can never write about me.' Then she called six mon... DAVID SEDARIS I am very close to my brother Ramesh Babu. When my father was away for shootings, my brother would t... MAHESH BABU My mother and my father were teachers. My grandmother and my grandfather were teachers. This is some... WARREN BEATTY In my twenties, I was obsessed with what other people thought of me. In my thirties, it's about ... JASMINE GUINNESS As a father, I always want my son to be perfect. When he was young, I tried to train him in martial ... JACKIE CHAN 'Master Harold' is about me as a little boy, and my father, who was an alcoholic. There'... ATHOL FUGARD My father always said, 'Do your best and piss on the rest.' And I think there's a lot of... KADEE STRICKLAND When I was younger, I was a bit of a feisty fighter type of guy. That's something my father told... NATE ROBINSON I care about money, very much. I want it. I don't ever want to be without it. My mother once sai... ELAINE STRITCH It was something she didn't want me to do because she thought the rejection would ruin my self-e... ELLEN MUTH I once told a journalist that girls call me 'Kitten,' but I couldn't have been more sarc... JOAQUIN PHOENIX I once said to my father, when I was a boy, 'Dad we need a third political party.' He said t... RALPH NADER My father was a painter and he taught art. He once said to me, 'I never knew an Indian child who... N. SCOTT MOMADAY I have my father's lopsided mouth. When I smile, my lips slope to one side. My doctor sister cal... CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE That's the great thing about New Year's, you get to be a year older. For me, that wasn't... ALAN KING I don't really care what other people see me as. I seriously don't. I've always worried ... KAJOL When one woman found out I had multiple sclerosis, she said to me, 'My heart bleeds for you.'... TERI GARR I remember back in the early '70s, when I had a disastrous Grand Prix, my wife, Lynn, said to me... IAN MILLAR My father was a very unhappy person, very sarcastic, and my mother was very nervous and worried abou... PAULA DANZIGER My mother was very strong. Once, she picked up a coconut and smashed it against my father's head... ALICE WALKER I've always been a fan of my father's films. I'm crazy about my father and his movies. I... DULQUER SALMAAN I'll never forget one of those things that my father said to me. My father said: 'You know w... ROB LOWE My father had always called me Sam since the day I was born. He rarely ever called me Tiger. I would... TIGER WOODS I've said it before, but it's absolutely true: My mother gave me my drive, but my father gav... LIZA MINNELLI After about five hours of pushing, my midwife and my birthing assistant said, 'You know, we have... EVANGELINE LILLY I really don't care if people know who I am or what's said about me. HALEY JOEL OSMENT A woman called me interesting once, and it kind of blew my mind. She said, 'You're one of th... ZAC EFRON I can't even give my father a proper gift. Every single Father's Day means so much to me. I&... KYRIE IRVING I like a woman who takes care of herself - it says something about the way she'll care for me. USHER I'm from a family of teachers. My father would drown me in the bathtub if my daughter didn't... P. C. CAST For me, it's very offensive when I notice that it's all about my appearance, how I look, tha... YULIYA SNIGIR A woman said to me, 'You're better than your successor.' She then said she's lived u... GORDON BROWN On my first day in New York a guy asked me if I knew where Central Park was. When I told him I didn&... PAUL MERTON I remember my father, who had served in Vietnam, once talking to me about how real courage is when y... ANNA M. AQUINO My husband was just OK looking. I was in labor and I said to him, 'What if she's ugly? You... BEVERLY JOHNSON When I auditioned for my high school band the band director was excited because my father was known ... WYNTON MARSALIS I couldn't care less about who sees my bits... My friends asked how I could do scenes like that ... COLIN FARRELL I can tell you that you will have your hearts broken more by the people you love than by the people ... MARGARET PETERSON HADDIX My father was very methodical about life. He'd always ask me, 'Now, what's your system? ... JEFF MACNELLY When I was in the ring at the Olympics, it was my father's words that I was hearing, not the coa... FLOYD MAYWEATHER, JR. No, I never thought about my father's money as my money. CHRISTIE HEFNER The father figure doesn't impress me. I have a very friendly relationship with my father, but th... XAVIER DOLAN Let me tell you about the nap. It's absolutely fantastic. When I was a kid, my father was always... PHILIP ROTH I wasn't expelled for anything vicious, just being cheeky, not doing what I was told, answering ... ALFIE ALLEN Her father said "Don't go overboard with this church stuff" ....and then she passed. Then The Father... JAIME LYNNE DILLON My dad said, 'Stay humble, and you gotta work harder than everybody else.' My mom said, '... NATE ROBINSON I can't stand quitters. My mother is a very strong, determined woman. I was peeling onions when ... ESTELLE My dad always told me, 'I don't care what you do. Just aim to be the best at it. Even if it&... BRUCE DICKINSON A couple of years before he died, I kissed my father goodbye. He said, 'Son, you haven't kis... TERRY WOGAN Tom Ford, who is my all-time favourite, once said to me, 'Here's the thing about dress shirt... ROB LOWE I'm quite sensitive to women. I saw how my sister got treated by boyfriends. I read this thing t... ORLANDO BLOOM I once had a dream and this one familiar god, who was probably one of my master teachers, said, '... NINA HAGEN My father said, 'Aren't you going to do anything to help people? We have a whole rack of rel... MIRIAM DEFENSOR-SANTIAGO I remember I read this harsh review about my show, and one of my friends told me that this was the e... BRITNEY SPEARS What I'd like to pass on to my children is the thirst for knowledge. It's something I experi... FRANCESCO QUINN Mummy was absolutely the rock in my life. It was not that I didn't love my father; he was such a... MIRIAM MARGOLYES I bought all the books, but I probably knew on the first day that law school wasn't for me. I di... CHARLES SCHWAB I don't think my mother and father ever had any doubts about what I was to be punished for or no... B. F. SKINNER But my father was also the one who told me I needed to clean up my mouth or I'd never find a man... ZOSIA MAMET I once won a second prize in a history concert. My parents came to the ceremony. Somebody else had w... AMY CHUA I started on the clarinet. I was going to a music school - my mother took me - and the guy said, ... CHRISTOPHER GUEST Nobody told me there was any idea for a sequel to 'The Exorcist.' But my agent called me to ... MAX VON SYDOW What I don't like about Washington, if we say one syllable or one sentence, or this guy said som... ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI When I was about 19, my stepmother said - because this was back in the '80s - that I had Robert ... MICHAEL WEATHERLY As my father taught me, and he drove home that point, he said, 'Just remember something. You don... ARNOLD PALMER I remember my father saying to me once, 'I finally know how to describe you, Charlotte. You'... CHARLOTTE RAMPLING I don't care what anyone says. It's my life, and I can do what I like. KATIE PRICE Growing up, I was discouraged from telling personal stories. My dad often used the phrase 'Don... MIKE BIRBIGLIA My parents never told me to get a real job. They always said, 'Go for it! If this is what you wa... IMELDA MAY As for my career, I always said to my kids, 'you don't cry because it's over, you're... PAT BURNS I'm always fighting with profanity and Christian comedy. I'm telling you, it's always a ... KYM WHITLEY Are you taking us to the beach?" - Dan Cahill JUDE WATSON I told my therapist I was having nightmares about nuclear explosions. He said don't worry it'... JAY LONDON I've been around golf my whole life. My father did it all the time, and I resented him for it. B... FRED DURST I never had a speech from my father 'this is what you must do or shouldn't do' but I jus... ADAM SANDLER I would ask my mother to show me how to walk - and she did show me. That's why I think it's ... NAOMI CAMPBELL When Nandita expressed a desire to write about me, I couldn't stop her because she's my wife... OM PURI I don't know why men are so fascinated with television and I think it has something to do with -... GARRY SHANDLING I don't have a college degree, and my father didn't have a college degree, so when my son, Z... ROBIN WILLIAMS My father was a clergyman and always said: 'Hate the sin but love the sinner.' GEORGE MCGOVERN I remember my father, when I said I was going down to Little Rock to work for Governor Clinton's... RAHM EMANUEL Like my father, I don't want to see anyone mistreated, anything like that. I'm very racial-c... NATALIE COLE My father was Catholic, and my mother wanted me to go to Catholic school. That's what I did in f... EDWARD P. JONES I'm Muhammad Ali's daughter, but my father and I are very different in that area. I don'... LAILA ALI My father told me once not to expect anything from anybody so I wouldn't be disappointed. If som... IRIS APFEL I had long been resistant to doing a documentary about my mother for personal reasons. And I thought... RORY KENNEDY My father put it right when he said: 'I don't get ulcers. I give ulcers.' EDGAR BRONFMAN, SR. He's just like my father that way-my father just adored my mother and let her do whatever she wa... JUNE CARTER CASH My father always said, 'Never trust anyone whose TV is bigger than their book shelf' - so I ... EMILIA CLARKE When I was younger, coming up in this industry, I was 17, 18 years old. You couldn't tell me Bey... LIL MAMA I always was a weird child. My mother told me the story that, in kindergarten, I would come home and... JOHN WATERS My sister and I cooked a lot together; my sister was a very healthy vegetarian. She was always a rea... GUY FIERI All my life, men have told me I wasn't pretty enough - even the men I was dating. And I'd be... LIL' KIM
More Gore Vidal
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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... 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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