Gore Vidal Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal Quotes & Sayings

Happy to read and share the best inspirational Gore Vidal quotes, sayings and quotations on Wise Famous Quotes.

Writers since at least the heyday of Gore Vidal have bemoaned their audience's defection to other forms of entertainment. — Garth Risk Hallberg

Women are put on earth only to provide men with sons. — Gore Vidal

The American passion for categorizing has now managed to create two non-existent categories - gay and straight. — Gore Vidal

An important governorship used to be the best springboard for would-be presidents. — Gore Vidal

There are certain truths so true that they are practically unbelievable. — Gore Vidal

No reform ever came from the bottom, and it was always people who understood how the ruling class worked who turned out to be the reformers. — Gore Vidal

Andy Warhol is the only genius I've ever known with an IQ of 60. — Gore Vidal

That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness of writers. — Gore Vidal

A racial or religious or tribal identity is a kind of fact. — Gore Vidal

Americans worship the Constitution but do not observe it. — Gore Vidal

All children alarm their parents, if only because you are forever expecting to encounter yourself. — Gore Vidal

There are a great many people who have a vested interest in maintaining the stupidity of the American public. — Gore Vidal

Love is a fan club with only two fans. — Gore Vidal

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

First coffee, then a bowel movement. Then the Muse joins me. — Gore Vidal

Christianity is such a silly religion. — Gore Vidal

As for civil liberties, any one who is not vigilant may one day find himself living, if not in a police state, at least in a police city. — Gore Vidal

History is idle gossip about a happening whose truth is lost the instant it has taken place. — Gore Vidal

What begins with comedy ends with comedy ... in my short view of the matter. — Gore Vidal

Does one ever read a politician's books? — Gore Vidal

He who is last had best laugh. — Gore Vidal

Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either. — Gore Vidal

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

Those who have not undergone minor disasters are usually being held in reserve for something major — Gore Vidal

I am glad my life is coming to an end. To think that it might last another five hundred years, now that would be terrible, in my case. — Gore Vidal

Nearly everyone who goes into a campaign is not only eager for the place he hopes to fill but for what might come after. — Gore Vidal

The American high school graduate is two years behind his English, French or German counterpart; in Alabama, God knows how far behind. — Gore Vidal

It is my task always to know, particularly when I don't. — Gore Vidal

It is always a delicate matter, when a friend or acquaintance becomes president. — Gore Vidal

My father had lifelong contempt for politicians. — Gore Vidal

Altruism is a brief phase through which some adolescents must pass. It is rather like acne. Happily, as with acne, only a few are permanently scarred. — Gore Vidal

Southerners make good novelists: they have so many stories because they have so much family. — Gore Vidal

There is something about the state putting the power to bully into the hands of subnormal, sadistic apes that makes my blood boil. — Gore Vidal

I have been on the cover of Time magazine. My father was on the cover of Time, and my grandfather was on the cover of Time. — Gore Vidal

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

The rhetoric of hate is often most effective when couched in the idiom of love. — Gore Vidal

We are pleased to dismiss politics as entirely corrupt, if not financially, intellectually. — Gore Vidal

When Franklin says yes, yes, yes, he isn't agreeing with you. He's just listening to you. — Gore Vidal

The American vice is explanation. — Gore Vidal

Love it or loathe it, you can never leave it or lose it. — Gore Vidal

There's a lot to be said for being nouveau riche, and the Reagans mean to say it all. — Gore Vidal

The war against terror is like a war against dandruff. It's a metaphor. It's not about anything. — Gore Vidal

I liked the trichotomy, that's the only thing I ever liked. — Gore Vidal

How hungrily we read about ourselves! — Gore Vidal

To a man, ornithologists are tall, slender, and bearded so that they can stand motionless for hours, imitating kindly trees, as they watch for birds. — Gore Vidal

I'm exactly as I appear. There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water. — Gore Vidal

Why not just eliminate the federal income tax? — Gore Vidal

Can you imagine having a love affair going on and on decade after decade? Macabre. — Gore Vidal

I've always regarded it as a test of character to dislike the Kennedys. I don't really respect anyone who falls for Camelot. — Christopher Hitchens

That loyal retainer of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the American president. — Gore Vidal

The behaviour of President Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to not unnatural suspicions. — Gore Vidal

As I looked back over my life, I realized that I enjoyed nothing
not art, not sex
more than going to the movies. — Gore Vidal

True wisdom is to know the extent of what you don't know quite as well as you know what you do know. — Gore Vidal

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. — Gore Vidal

The problem with most Americans is that they don't like any question that takes more than ten seconds to answer. — Gore Vidal

I am an obsessive rewriter, doing one draft and then another and another, usually five. In a way, I have nothing to say, but a great deal to add. — Gore Vidal

I think there is an instinct out there to rid us of our masters. — Gore Vidal

I was the most famous kid in the United States. That was 1936. — Gore Vidal

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

Washington turned a blind eye to Al-Qaeda. — Gore Vidal

Never have varmints, only grandvarmints. — Gore Vidal

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

To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun. — Gore Vidal

American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither. — Gore Vidal

Always a godfather, never a god. — Gore Vidal

It is curious how often one prefers his enemies to his friends. — Gore Vidal

Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they're both just aspirin. — Gore Vidal

There is a terrible garrulousness in most American writing, legacy of the old Frontier. — Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal has been a friend of mine for years, and he's one of the greatest writers in American history. — Cybill Shepherd

During the late '50s, I had worked on the script of Ben-Hur in an office next to that of the producer Sam Zimbalist. — Gore Vidal

I'm a fervent foe of water pollution, whether it is our own Hudson River or Philadelphia's tap water. — Gore Vidal

Ronald Reagan is a triumph of the embalmer's art. — Gore Vidal

Although Americans justify their self-interest in moral terms, their true interest is never itself moral. — Gore Vidal

The people are not stupid, but they are totally misinformed. — Gore Vidal

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

It is not enough merely to win; others must lose. — Gore Vidal

Since nothing is free, to each his price. — Gore Vidal

Like the rest of us, Constantius was many men in the body of one. — Gore Vidal

My family is Southern. I'm used to Bill Clintons. — Gore Vidal

To be categorized is, simply, to be enslaved — Gore Vidal

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

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. — Gore Vidal

In the German concentration camps, Jews wore yellow stars while homosexuals wore pink lambdas. — Gore Vidal

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

How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself. — Gore Vidal

Like the TV networks, once our government has a hit, it will be repeated over and over again. — Gore Vidal

Both Marx and Christ agree that in this life, a right action is consideration for the welfare of others. — Gore Vidal

That my plans have lately gone somewhat awry is the sort of risk one must take if life is to be superb. — Gore Vidal

Certainly 'The Judgment of Paris' was the novel in which I found my own voice. — Gore Vidal

American history has fallen more and more into the hands of academics. — Gore Vidal

Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so. — Gore Vidal

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

Would it be anything like a literary disaster if Gore Vidal were to fall silent? Easy. No. In fact, there is something to be said for the idea. — Lance Morrow

A writer must always tell the truth (unless he's a journalist) — Gore Vidal

The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself. — Gore Vidal

Let the dust take me when the adventure's done and I shall make the dust glitter for all eternity with my marvelous fury. — Gore Vidal

Half the American population no longer reads newspapers: plainly, they are the clever half. — Gore Vidal

In character, as it were, the writer settles for an impression of what happened rather than creating the sense of the thing happening. — Gore Vidal

I was raised in the Washington household of my grandfather Senator Thomas P. Gore of Oklahoma, and have known politicians intimately all my life. — Gore Vidal

The more money an American accumulates, the less interesting he becomes. — Gore Vidal