Vidal's Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about Vidal's

Vidal's Quotes & Sayings

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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

Some have deplored Lincoln's indifference to Christianity. But it was not religion, it was religiosity that put him off. — 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

To me hair dressing means shape. It's very important that the foundations should be right. — Vidal Sassoon

I read Noam Chomsky. I like some of Gore Vidal's stuff. — John Cusack

Baseball is the favorite American sport because it's so slow. Any idiot can follow it. And just about any idiot can play it. — Gore Vidal

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

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

It was my mother's idea. Her feeling was that I didn't have the intelligence to pick a trade myself. — Vidal Sassoon

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

It's always best to stay out of other people's divorces. And their civil wars. — Gore Vidal

To prevent the theft of 'Ben-Hur's sets, guards were prowling the back lot long after production had been shut down. — Gore Vidal

I get to be creative and touch other people's lives. — Lisa Vidal

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

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

It's odd to meet a rather elderly man who says, 'I've been reading you all my life.' It makes you feel a slight chill. — 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

Nothing that Shakespeare ever invented was to equal Lincoln's invention of himself and, in the process, us. — Gore Vidal

In classical times, it was a capital offense to speculate upon the hour of a king's death or upon the identity of his successor. — Gore Vidal

Populists have never had a good press in Freedom's land. — 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

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

"Terrorism" is a metaphor, it's an abstract noun. It's like having a war on dandruff. It's something from advertising, it's meaningless. — Gore Vidal

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

I deny that there's such a thing as a gay person. I deny there's such a thing as a heterosexual person. — Gore Vidal

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

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

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

I think I have a normal threshold of anger, but it's true that I am, by nature, belligerent. — Gore Vidal

Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine. — 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

By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he's been bought ten times over. — Gore Vidal

Politically, of course, it's to the Right, but then the whole country is to the Right. — Gore Vidal

He's a full-fledged housewife from Kansas with all the prejudices. — Gore Vidal

Lastly I would like to thank all of the assholes in the world, without which this book would not be possible. — Albert Vidal

I'm involved with Children's Hospital Los Angeles. I love anything that helps and improves the life of children. — Lisa Vidal

The worst thing to happen to Lincoln - aside from the unfortunate incident at Ford's theatre - was to fall into the hands of Carl Sandburg. — Gore Vidal

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

As a schoolboy, I read most of Carl Sandburg's six-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln. — Gore Vidal

The first grown-up book that I read on my own was a nineteenth-century edition of 'Tales from Livy' that I'd found in my grandfather's library. — Gore Vidal

To have an interest in both sexes is equally normal. Whether it's practiced or not is something else. Some do. Some don't. — Gore Vidal

Fifty percent of people won't vote, and fifty percent don't read newspapers. I hope it's the same fifty percent. — Gore Vidal

Write something, even if it's just a suicide note. — Gore Vidal

I never reread a text until I have finished the first draft. Otherwise it's too discouraging. — Gore Vidal

Hairdressing in general hasn't been given the kudos it deserves. It's not recognised by enough people as a worthy craft. — Vidal Sassoon

It's okay saying sorry, but when you are drunk you say what you really feel. — Vidal Sassoon

In writing and politicking, it's best not to think about it, just do it. — Gore Vidal

It is essential to naturalist doctrine that literature, to be good, must, finally, be the author's experience worked out literally. — Gore Vidal

After adolescence, if one's life is sufficiently interesting, the desire to tell oneself stories diminishes. — Gore Vidal

The individual's desire to dominate his environment is not a desirable trait in a society which every day grows more and more confining. — Gore Vidal

I think the Chinese will say the hell with you and pull their money out of the United States. That's the end of our wars. — Gore Vidal

In essence, Clinton's Anti-Terrorism Act would set up a national police force, over the long-dead bodies of the founders. — Gore Vidal

Deceit and lying make me feel vulnerable. — Lisa 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

Vidal Sassoon was the most famous hairstylist in the history of the world. — John Paul DeJoria

Never have varmints, only grandvarmints. — Gore Vidal

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

I'm a great jazz fan. — Vidal Sassoon

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

Mary Quant is my favourite fashion designer. — Vidal Sassoon

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

It's hard to give advice. There are so many people, how do you give major advice to a group of people, it's very presumptuous. — Vidal Sassoon

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

Judaism is important to me from a tribal point of view. — Vidal Sassoon

To be categorized is, simply, to be enslaved — 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

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

I never wanted to be a writer. I mean, that's the last thing I wanted. — Gore Vidal

Sex is a continuum. You go through different phases along life's way ... and if you don't, you've been sort of cheated. — Gore Vidal

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

When you want something so badly, you just do it. You don't think about how hard it's going to be. — Lisa Vidal

Of all this world's creatures, the author is the vainest, — Gore Vidal

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

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

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

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

To sculpt a head of hair with scissors is an art form. It's in pursuit of art. — Vidal Sassoon

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

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

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