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I don't seem to be cynical to myself but how what I say goes down with others is their problem. I'm realistic.

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
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More quotes by Gore Vidal

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Since I ought to be arrogant, impressed with my social position, overwhelmed by my beauty, therefore I am. Actually I was never my own type so I completely missed my beauty all through my youth. I have no social position and I stay away from what is known as society as much as possible. But people like to re-invent you, according to cliché.
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There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.
Gore Vidal
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This separation was absolute in our original Republic. But the sky-godders do not give up easily. In the 1950s they actually got the phrase In God We Trust onto the currency, in direct violation of the First Amendment.
Gore Vidal
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I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam - good people, yes, but any religion based on a single, well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system.
Gore Vidal
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Most lives are spent putting on and taking off masks.
Gore Vidal
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In writing and politicking, it's best not to think about it, just do it.
Gore Vidal
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I have begun writing what I have said I'd never write, a memoir (I am not my own subject, I used to say with icy superiority).
Gore Vidal
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Everybody has two legs, two lobes to the brain which is why we tend to be interested in symmetry, always balancing things.
Gore Vidal
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Drugs. If they did not exist our governors would have invented them in order to prohibit them and so make much of the population vulnerable to arrest, imprisonment, seizure of property, and so on.
Gore Vidal
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[Norman Mailer] is against masturbation, he's against homosexuality. He believes that murder is essentially sexual. I think he's rather an anthology of all the darkest American traits.
Gore Vidal
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As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.
Gore Vidal
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Half the American population no longer reads newspapers: plainly, they are the clever half.
Gore Vidal
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The whole point to American journalism is what ought to be true is true. Since I ought to be arrogant, impressed with my social position, overwhelmed by my beauty, therefore I am.
Gore Vidal
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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
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Obviously I'm in favor of protecting the rights of everybody: gay, black, women, what have you, American Indians.
Gore Vidal
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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
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I am an obsessive rewriter, doing one draft and then another and another, usually five. In a way, I have nothing to say, but a great deal to add.
Gore Vidal
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Gentlemen are not supposed to tell the truth about their sex lives, nor are ladies, for that matter. Of course Clinton lied - as would anybody in his position.
Gore Vidal
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If you're not part of that club, as I certainly am not, you are not presidential.
Gore Vidal
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Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild.
Gore Vidal