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Gore Vidal QUOTES

Gore Vidal QUOTES

1 " The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself. "

― Gore Vidal

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

― Gore Vidal , Julian

3 " 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 God, one King, one Pope, one master in the factory, one father-leader in the family at home. "

― Gore Vidal

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

― Gore Vidal , Screening History

5 " 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 evil gods whose fantastic origin is in those barbaric tribes who feared death and lightning, who feared life. That's it: life is the villain to to those who preach reward in death, through grace and eternal bliss, or through dark revenge. "

― Gore Vidal , Messiah

6 " 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, however, write a perfect sentence now and then. I have. "

― Gore Vidal

7 " 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 takes in experience. But it is what is done with it in his mind, if he is a real writer, that makes his art. "

― Gore Vidal

8 " Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. "

― Gore Vidal

9 " 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 "

― Gore Vidal

10 " I’ve always said, ‘I have nothing to say, only to add.’ And it’s with each addition that the writing gets done. The first draft of anything is really just a track. "

― Gore Vidal

11 " 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. "

― Gore Vidal , At Home: Essays 1982-1988

12 " Ideally, of course, a relationship is best, but then how many people are capable of deep feeling? Practically none. "

― Gore Vidal , The City and the Pillar

13 " Prepare yourself for some bad news: Ronald Reagan’s library just burned down. Both books were destroyed. But the real horror: He hadn’t finished coloring either one of them. "

― Gore Vidal

14 " 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 the war machine. Now we have alienated almost the entire earth "

― Gore Vidal

15 " 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 time people will solemnly vote against their own interests. "

― Gore Vidal

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

― Gore Vidal

17 " 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 vindictive that it is willing, to be blunt, to overthrow the lawful government of the United States – that is, a president elected in 1992 and reelected in 1995 by We the People, that sole source of all political legitimacy, which takes precedence over the Constitution and the common law and God himself. "

― Gore Vidal , The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000

18 " 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 same beliefs. At worst, another man's belief might inspire amusement or contempt—the Egyptians and their animal gods, for instance. Yet those who worshipped the Bull did not try to murder those who worshipped the Snake, or to convert them by force from Snake to Bull. No evil ever entered the world quite so vividly or on such a vast scale as Christianity did. "

― Gore Vidal , Julian

19 " Even a child could see the division between what the Galileans [i.e., Christians] say they believe and what, in fact, they do believe, as demonstrated by their actions. A religion of brotherhood and mildness which daily murders those who disagree with its doctrines can only be thought hypocrite, or worse. "

― Gore Vidal , Julian

20 " I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam -- good people, yes, but any religion based on a single, well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system. "

― Gore Vidal , At Home: Essays 1982-1988