Gore Vidal quotes - page 3

History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true. (Gore Vidal)
Religions are manipulated in order to serve those who govern society and not the other way around. View quote
Gore Vidal
In a nation that has developed to a high art advertising, the creator who refuses to advertise himself is immediately suspected of having no product worth selling. View quote
Gore Vidal
Celebrities are invariably celebrity-mad, just as liars always believe liars. View quote
Gore Vidal
First coffee, then a bowel movement. Then the Muse joins me. View quote
Gore Vidal
Traitors who prevail are patriots; usurpers who succeed are divine emperors. View quote
Gore Vidal
I suspect that one of the reasons we create fiction is to make sex exciting. View quote
Gore Vidal
Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little. View quote
Gore Vidal
Monotheism is easily the greatest disaster to befall the human race. View quote
Gore Vidal
I can understand companionship. I can understand bought sex in the afternoon, but I cannot understand the love affair. View quote
Gore Vidal
We must always remember that the police are recruited from the criminal classes. (Gore Vidal)
How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself. View quote
Gore Vidal
Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences. View quote
Gore Vidal
To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun. View quote
Gore Vidal
Actually, there is no such thing as a homosexual person, any more than there is such a thing as a heterosexual person. The words are adjectives describing sexual acts, not people. The sexual acts are entirely normal; if they were not, no one would perform them. View quote
Gore Vidal
Television is a great leveler. You always end up sounding like the people who ask the questions. View quote
Gore Vidal
There was more of a flow to my output of writing in the past, certainly. Having no contemporaries left means you cannot say, "Well, so-and-so will like this," which you do when you're younger. You realize there is no so-and-so anymore. You are your own so-and-so. There is a bleak side to it. View quote
Gore Vidal
Nonprofit status is what created the Bible Belt. The tax code brought religion back to this country. View quote
Gore Vidal
As one gets older, litigation replaces sex. View quote
Gore Vidal
Precocious talents mature slowly if at all. View quote
Gore Vidal
Lonely children often have imaginary playmates but I was never lonely; rather, I was solitary, and wanted no company at all other than books and movies, and my own imagination. (Gore Vidal)
I have begun writing what I have said I'd never write, a memoir ("I am not my own subject," I used to say with icy superiority). View quote
Gore Vidal
By and large, serious fiction was the work of victims who portrayed victims for an audience of victims who, it was oddly assumed, would want to see their lives realistically portrayed. View quote
Gore Vidal
Class is the most difficult subject for American writers to deal with as it is the most difficult for the English to avoid. View quote
Gore Vidal
The hatred Americans have for their own government is pathological, if understandable. At one level it is simply thwarted greed: since our religion is making a buck, giving a part of that buck to any government is an act against nature. View quote
Gore Vidal