Quote

We should stop going around babbling about how we're the greatest democracy on earth, when we're not even a democracy. We are a sort of militarised republic.

Gore Vidal

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Gore Vidal
Age: 86 †
Born: 1925
Born: October 3
Died: 2012
Died: July 31
Actor
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Non-Fiction Writer
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Playwright
Politician
Prosaist
West Point
New York
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
Gor Vidal
Cameron Kay
Eugene Luther Vidal
Edgar Box
Katherine Everard
Eugene Vidal
Greatest
Sort
Stop
Politics
Around
Earth
Babbling
Even
Republic
Going
Democracy

More quotes by Gore Vidal

Image
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).
Gore Vidal
Image
CO₂ emissions anywhere threaten civilisation everywhere.
Gore Vidal
Image
Americans are not only a less homogenous population than we were when we were 3 million ex-colonists, but we're less educated. On top of that, we have constant misinformation and manipulation by media.
Gore Vidal
Image
Everybody likes a bit of gossip to some point, as long as it's gossip with some point to it. That's why I like history. History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true.
Gore Vidal
Image
I like Italy. I was always at home there, it's a marvelous place to become invisible. Nobody bothers you and nobody is interested in you and I find that very good for work.
Gore Vidal
Image
Instead of finding alternative energy sources, we try to subjugate entire regions of the world. People do not understand that by doing this, the United States are going to absolute ruin.
Gore Vidal
Image
The United States is my subject, but as Hawthorne once wrote, the United States are suited for many admirable purposes, but not to live in.
Gore Vidal
Image
People like to re-invent you, according to cliché. There are a lot of stores about me that really apply only to Capote or Mailer or somebody else. Everything is a mish mash.
Gore Vidal
Image
Vitriolic really is personal. I am vitriolic. I am savage.
Gore Vidal
Image
Commercialism is doing well that which should not be done at all.
Gore Vidal
Image
The world came so close to self-destruction during my lifetime. I was serving in the American Army, in the Pacific, at the time they bombed Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, and I felt there something like a foretaste of the end of the world.
Gore Vidal
Image
World events are the work of individuals whose motives are often frivolous, even casual.
Gore Vidal
Image
The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent.
Gore Vidal
Image
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
Image
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
Image
To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun.
Gore Vidal
Image
Andy Warhol is the only genius I've ever known with an IQ of 60.
Gore Vidal
Image
It is notable how little empathy is cultivated or valued in our society. I put this down to our traditional racism and obsessive sectarianism. Even so, one would think that we would be encouraged to project ourselves into the character of someone of a different race or class, if only to be able to control him. But no effort is made.
Gore Vidal
Image
They are longing for a war with Iran. Iran is no more a harm to us than was Iraq or Afghanistan. They invented an enemy, they tell lies, lies, lies. The New York Times goes along with their lies, lies, lies. And they don't stop. When the public that's lied to 30 times a day it's apt to believe the lies, is not it?
Gore Vidal
Image
A writer represents his family history. My grandfather was a senator and my father served in the Roosevelt administration. In other words, I grew up in politics. This is why it seemed perfectly natural to take part in the battles of my time, and to participate in the writing of the history of my country.
Gore Vidal