Quote

The Puritans left England for America not because they couldn't be Puritans in their mother country, but because they were not allowed to force others to become Puritans in the New World, of course, they could and did.

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
Mother
Allowed
Others
England
Become
Couldn
America
Courses
Country
Course
World
Religion
Force
Puritans
Left
Puritan

More quotes by Gore Vidal

Image
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.
Gore Vidal
Image
You hear all this whining going on, Where are our great writers? The thing I might feel doleful about is: Where are the readers?
Gore Vidal
Image
If satire is to be effective, the audience must be aware of the thing satirized.
Gore Vidal
Image
It is astonishing to think that millions of people in my time—now, too, I suppose—actually thought that at a given moment in history two human beings had evolved to a higher state than that of all the gods that ever were or ever will be. This is titanism, as the Greeks would say. This is madness.
Gore Vidal
Image
Write something, even if it's just a suicide note.
Gore Vidal
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild.
Gore Vidal
Image
I'm a true reactionary. Like all patricians, I'd like to restore the original republic, which we lost 40 years ago when Harry Truman imposed the national security state on us, which has kept us at war, hot or cold, for almost half a century, and it's got us $4 trillion into debt.
Gore Vidal
Image
Little Bush says we are at war, but we are not at war because to be at war Congress has to vote for it. He says we are at war on terror, but that is a metaphor, though I doubt if he knows what that means. It's like having a war on dandruff, it's endless and pointless.
Gore Vidal
Image
Before the cards that one is dealt by life are the cards that fate has dealt: one's family.
Gore Vidal
Image
We should stop going around babbling about how we're the greatest democracy on earth, when we're not even a democracy. We are a sort of militarised republic.
Gore Vidal
Image
To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun.
Gore Vidal
Image
The worst thing to happen to Lincoln - aside from the unfortunate incident at Ford's theatre - was to fall into the hands of Carl Sandburg.
Gore Vidal
Image
I have never been particularly impressed by the self centered musings of my fellow writers.
Gore Vidal
Image
Sex is a continuum. You go through different phases along life's way... and if you don't, you've been sort of cheated.
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
I’m not sentimental about anything. Life flows by, and you flow with it or you don’t. Move on and move out.
Gore Vidal
Image
The same people own the media that own the White House that own the Congress that own the oil fields. They all work together to give a false view of the world to the American people.
Gore Vidal