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What is there to say, finally, except that pain is bad and pleasure good, life all, death nothing.
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
Except
Pleasure
Pain
Death
Nothing
Good
Life
Finally
More quotes by Gore Vidal
There are certain truths so true that they are practically unbelievable.
Gore Vidal
That loyal retainer of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the American president.
Gore Vidal
I am glad my life is coming to an end. To think that it might last another five hundred years, now that would be terrible, in my case.
Gore Vidal
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
There is no such thing as a true account of anything.
Gore Vidal
Maybe there is no good God. But there is definitely a devil, and his predominant passion is the religion of Protestant fundamentalists. I believe my country is beginning to resemble a theocracy. Using television, the evangelists raise appalling amounts of money which they then invest in the election of mentally disabled obscurantists.
Gore Vidal
Realism has always been called cynicism.
Gore Vidal
I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.
Gore Vidal
Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
Gore Vidal
It is not enough merely to win others must lose.
Gore Vidal
I believe there's something very salutary in, say, beating up a gay-bashing policeman. Preferably one fights through the courts, through the laws, through education, but if at a neighborhood level violence is necessary, I'm all for violence. It's the only thing Americans understand.
Gore Vidal
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
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
The hatred Americans have for their own government is pathological, if understandable. At one level it is simply thwarted greed: since our religion is making a buck, giving a part of that buck to any government is an act against nature.
Gore Vidal
It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people.
Gore Vidal
People have forgotten the effects of prohibition. We have become the United Statesof Amnesia.
Gore Vidal
I’m not a conspiracy theorist - I’m a conspiracy analyst.
Gore Vidal
Rome ... at its most decadent, had never thought of hiring an actor to go through the motions of being an emperor while the Praetorian Guard ruled.
Gore Vidal
I have never been particularly impressed by the self centered musings of my fellow writers.
Gore Vidal
Envy is the central fact of American life.
Gore Vidal