Quotes by Gore Vidal

“The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.”

“Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.”

“History is idle gossip about a happening whose truth is lost the instant it has taken place.”

“Life will be wonderful when men no longer fear dying. When the last superstitions are thrown out and we meet death with the same equanimity as life. No longer will children's minds be twisted by ev...”

“Presidents have absolutely gone against the will of Congress. Congress hasn't declared a war since December 7, 1941, and yet we've been at war ever since with somebody or other in order to justify ...”

“Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose. Any movement of a liberal nature endangers his authority and that of his delegates on earth. One...”

“As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election ...”

“As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days. ”

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

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

“It is ironic-rouse the limpest adjective-that a government as spontaneously tyrannous and callous as ours should, over the years, have come yo care so much about our health as it endlessly tests an...”

“Foreigners are mystified by the whole business while thoughtful Americans there are several of us are equally mystified that the ruling establishment of the country has proved to be so mindlessly...”

“You can't really succeed with a novel anyway; they're too big. It's like city planning. You can't plan a perfect city because there's too much going on that you can't take into account. You can, ho...”

“Constant work, constant writing and constant revision. The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge. What he takes in he takes in normally the way any person take...”

“Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head.”

“I sometimes think it is because they are so bad at expressing themselves verbally that writers take to pen and paper in the first place”

“With modern technology it is the easiest of tasks for a media, guided by a narrow group of political manipulators, to speak constantly of democracy and freedom while urging regime changes everywher...”

“Ive always said, I have nothing to say, only to add. And its with each addition that the writing gets done. The first draft of anything is really just a track.”

“To a born-again atheist like myself, it is clear that each of us has multiple selves, talents, perceptions. But to the Roman Catholic, unity is all.”

“The malice of a true Christian attempting to destroy an opponent is something unique in the world. No other religion ever considered it necessary to destroy others because they did not share the sa...”