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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
Learns
Writer
Nothing
Real
Life
Oyster
Like
Sponge
Sponges
Oysters

More quotes by Gore Vidal

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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.
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The first TV babies are now writing with a TV mind that has no attention span at all.
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That peculiarly American religion, President-worship.
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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.
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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.
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Nonprofit status is what created the Bible Belt. The tax code brought religion back to this country.
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When anyone says to me, 'Can you keep a secret?' I say, 'Why should I, if you can't?'
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What is in question is a kind of book reviewing which seems to be more and more popular: the loose putting down of opinions as though they were facts, and the treating of facts as though they were opinions.
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A good deed never goes unpunished.
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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.
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The true confessors have been aware that not only is life mostly failure, but that in one's failure or pettiness or wrongness exists the living drama of the self.
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What is there to say, finally, except that pain is bad and pleasure good, life all, death nothing.
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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.
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From the age of 1 to 6 there is a small percentage that is exclusively homosexual, a small percentage heterosexual and there's a wide band in the middle of people who respond to various stimuli. A little bit here, a little more there.
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CO₂ emissions anywhere threaten civilisation everywhere.
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I write in the morning at a table, longhand on yellow legal pads, just like Nixon, when I’m doing fiction.
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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.
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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.
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Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild.
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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.
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