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The word 'radical' derives from the Latin word for root. Therefore, if you want to get to the root of anything you must be radical. It is no accident that the word has now been totally demonized.

Gore Vidal

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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
Radical
Totally
Roots
Demonized
Therefore
Derives
Democracy
Accident
Word
Root
Anything
Latin
Must
Accidents

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If you're not part of that club, as I certainly am not, you are not presidential.
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We affect one another quite enough merely by existing. Whenever the stars cross, or is it comets? fragments pass briefly from one orbit to another. On rare occasions there is total collision, but most often the two simply continue without incident, neither losing more than a particle to the other, in passing.
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Freud did some serious damage to American literature - a lot of writers began therapy in the 1940s, after which they all became terribly egocentric.
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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.
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I have no television to go on so I get a lot of writing done. That's my substitute for television.
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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.
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One of the most fascinating aspects of politician-watching is trying to determine to what extent any politician believes what he says.
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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.
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Never have children, only grandchildren.
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Most writers write books that they wouldn't read. I ought to know I've done it myself.
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Nothing human is finally calculable even to ourselves we are strange.
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