Quote

I have no television to go on so I get a lot of writing done. That's my substitute for television.

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
Substitutes
Television
Done
Writing
Substitute

More quotes by Gore Vidal

Image
I suspect that one of the reasons we create fiction is to make sex exciting.
Gore Vidal
Image
You can improve your talent, but your talent is a given, a mysterious constant. You must make it the best of its kind.
Gore Vidal
Image
You see we adults have learned how to disguise our terrible characters but a child... well, it's like a grotesque drawing of us. They should be neither seen nor heard. And no one must make another one.
Gore Vidal
Image
It never occurred to any Enlightenment figure in the eighteenth century that law was not preferable to man.
Gore Vidal
Image
I look into my own black heart.
Gore Vidal
Image
On 16 September 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died.
Gore Vidal
Image
The Gores, I think, are a bit brighter than the Bushes, historically speaking.
Gore Vidal
Image
Write something, even if it's just a suicide note.
Gore Vidal
Image
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
Image
Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they're both just aspirin.
Gore Vidal
Image
Vitriolic really is personal. I am vitriolic. I am savage.
Gore Vidal
Image
As one gets older, litigation replaces sex.
Gore Vidal
Image
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.
Gore Vidal
Image
Realism has always been called cynicism.
Gore Vidal
Image
A writer represents his family history. My grandfather was a senator and my father served in the Roosevelt administration. In other words, I grew up in politics. This is why it seemed perfectly natural to take part in the battles of my time, and to participate in the writing of the history of my country.
Gore Vidal
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I’m not a conspiracy theorist - I’m a conspiracy analyst.
Gore Vidal
Image
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.
Gore Vidal
Image
Sex was a great no-no for Americans, so that was obviously an attraction to the writers, and since sex is a great part of most people's lives, it's a great subject.
Gore Vidal