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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

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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
Since
Wrong
Whether
Else
Correct
Someone
Absolutely
Certain
View
Ever
Views
Life
Impossible

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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.
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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.
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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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Christianity is such a silly religion.
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The Gores, I think, are a bit brighter than the Bushes, historically speaking.
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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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To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun.
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There are two things you never turn down: sex and appearing on television.
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True wisdom is to know the extent of what you don't know quite as well as you know what you do know.
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The United States is my subject, but as Hawthorne once wrote, the United States are suited for many admirable purposes, but not to live in.
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We have been at war almost constantly since the last century. And it has not helped our institutions. Congress no longer represents the people. The courts do not practice justice any more. The armies never stop playing at being the policemen of the world and of oil.
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As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.
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Many people in the United States happen to believe that United States policy is wrong in Vietnam and the Vietcong are correct in wanting to organize their country in their own way politically. This happens to be pretty much the opinion of western Europe and the other parts of the world.
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For true happiness, it is not enough to be successful oneself . . . one's friends must fail.
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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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I'd like to see a revival of state legislatures, in which I am a true Jeffersonian.
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For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.
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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.
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I’m not a conspiracy theorist - I’m a conspiracy analyst.
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Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.
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