Quote

You know, I've been around the ruling class all my life, and I've been quite aware of their total contempt for the people of the country.

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
Life
Ruling
People
Contempt
Total
Aware
Quite
Class
Around
Country

More quotes by Gore Vidal

Image
I was never my own type so I completely missed my beauty all through my youth.
Gore Vidal
Image
A huge number of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. You have a people that don't know anything about the rest of the world, and you have leaders who lie to them, lie to them, and lie to them.
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
Democracy is something America has never really practiced. Because the Founding Fathers hated two things: monarchy and democracy. They wanted a republic, a replica of the Roman or Venetian republics. They didn't even like the etymology of the word democracy.
Gore Vidal
Image
First coffee, then a bowel movement. Then the Muse joins me.
Gore Vidal
Image
Next to I win, I told you so are the sweetest words.
Gore Vidal
Image
I suppose my liking for Italy is partly atavism, my family are of the old Roman stock. They came from the Alps north of Venice.
Gore Vidal
Image
All in all, I would not have missed this century for the world.
Gore Vidal
Image
Commercialism is doing well that which should not be done at all.
Gore Vidal
Image
I was the first - I was extremely unpopular with the establishment of the United States, particularly the New York Times was always an enemy, and Time magazine, off and on, the enemy, because I said things and took positions that other people didn't do.
Gore Vidal
Image
There are a great many people who have a vested interest in maintaining the stupidity of the American public.
Gore Vidal
Image
In large Victorian houses with many rooms and heavy doors, the occupants could be mysterious and exciting to one another in a way that those who live in rackety developments can never hope to be. Not even the lust of a Lord Byron could survive the fact of Levittown.
Gore Vidal
Image
The New York Times is the worst in that hardly anybody can write English over there. Most of it reads like slight translations from the German.
Gore Vidal
Image
The first TV babies are now writing with a TV mind that has no attention span at all.
Gore Vidal
Image
The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge.
Gore Vidal
Image
a writer must always tell the truth (unless he's a journalist)
Gore Vidal
Image
Between Malraux, Balzac, and Montaigne, I choose Montaigne. Montaigne will survive all the others, because the essay, meaning direct communication between the writer and his reader, will outlast the novel, by at least a thousand years.
Gore Vidal
Image
Who gives a damn about being remembered? That's really for amateurs.
Gore Vidal
Image
By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he's been bought ten times over.
Gore Vidal
Image
People are worse educated than they used to be. Certainly they are not very interested in reading books, as opposed to watching television, movies. They are used to getting things through the eye and the ear. In a small way, literature goes on being written, but few people like it. Once it's bureaucratized by the schoolteachers, the game's up.
Gore Vidal