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The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge.
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
Nothing
Real
Life
Oyster
Like
Sponge
Sponges
Oysters
Learns
Writer
More quotes by Gore Vidal
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
Terrorism is a metaphor, it's an abstract noun. It's like having a war on dandruff. It's something from advertising, it's meaningless.
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.
Gore Vidal
To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun.
Gore Vidal
For true happiness, it is not enough to be successful oneself . . . one's friends must fail.
Gore Vidal
In America, the race goes to the loud, the solemn, the hustler. If you think you're a great writer, you must say that you are.
Gore Vidal
All Americans born between 1890 and 1945 wanted to be movie stars.
Gore Vidal
Commercialism is doing well that which should not be done at all.
Gore Vidal
I'm a much worse guest than I am a host, and I'm not an awfully good host either. I really like being alone.
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
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
Since no one can ever know for certain whether or not his own view of life is the correct one, it is absolutely impossible for him to know if someone else's is the wrong one.
Gore Vidal
Poor John Simon - what a nightmare, to wake up in the morning and realize that you are John Simon.
Gore Vidal
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
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.
Gore Vidal
When you control opinion, as corporate America controls opinion in the United States by owning the media, you can make the masses believe almost anything you want, and guide them as you please.
Gore Vidal
Constant work, constant writing and constant revision. The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge. What he takes in he takes in normally the way any person takes in experience. But it is what is done with it in his mind, if he is a real writer, that makes his art.
Gore Vidal
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
What is a political party but a conspiracy?
Gore Vidal
Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine.
Gore Vidal
