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The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country — and we haven't seen them since.
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
People
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Haven
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United
Brightest
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Gore
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More quotes by Gore Vidal
People have forgotten the effects of prohibition. We have become the United Statesof Amnesia.
Gore Vidal
Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine.
Gore Vidal
The greatest pleasure when I started making money was not buying cars or yachts but finding myself able to have as many freshly typed drafts as possible.
Gore Vidal
I was never my own type so I completely missed my beauty all through my youth.
Gore Vidal
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
Miss Rand now tells us that what we have thought was right is really wrong. The lesson should have read: One for one and none for all.
Gore Vidal
Never have children, only grandchildren.
Gore Vidal
Liberal comes from the Latin liberalis, which means pertaining to a free man. In politics, to be liberal is to want to extend democracy through change and reform. One can see why that word had to be erased from our political lexicon.
Gore Vidal
I'm in Hollywood right now, surrounded by nothing but the sons and grandsons of movie stars.
Gore Vidal
First coffee, then a bowel movement. Then the Muse joins me.
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.
Gore Vidal
I'm devoted to promiscuity, and always have been. I believe the more you do, the better it is for you. I'm a great health nut, and sex is, I think, absolutely marvelous for the whole system tones you up.
Gore Vidal
What is there to say, finally, except that pain is bad and pleasure good, life all, death nothing.
Gore Vidal
[ New York ] is a place that worships incompetence particularly if it's combined with energy and paranoid self-confidence. Only in a city like New York could Truman Capote have made it, or John Simon.
Gore Vidal
World events are the work of individuals whose motives are often frivolous, even casual.
Gore Vidal
One of the most fascinating aspects of politician-watching is trying to determine to what extent any politician believes what he says.
Gore Vidal
Where there is no desire or pursuits, there is no wholeness. But there are satisfying lesser states, fragments.
Gore Vidal
Maybe there is no good God. But there is definitely a devil, and his predominant passion is the religion of Protestant fundamentalists. I believe my country is beginning to resemble a theocracy. Using television, the evangelists raise appalling amounts of money which they then invest in the election of mentally disabled obscurantists.
Gore Vidal
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
Although the notion of one god may give comfort to those in need of a daddy, it reminds the rest of us that the totalitarian society is grounded upon the concept of God the father. One paternal god, one paternal leader. Authority is absolute.
Gore Vidal
