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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.
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
Living
Confessors
True
Wrongness
Self
Pettiness
Life
Mostly
Exists
Aware
Drama
Failure
More quotes by Gore Vidal
The problem with most Americans is that they don't like any question that takes more than ten seconds to answer.
Gore Vidal
The whole point to American journalism is what ought to be true is true.
Gore Vidal
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.
Gore Vidal
Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.
Gore Vidal
As one gets older, litigation replaces sex.
Gore Vidal
Of course, it is possible for any citizen with time to spare, and a canny eye, to work out what is actually going on, but for the many there is not time, and the network news is the only news even though it may not be news at all but only a series of flashing fictions.
Gore Vidal
I have no television to go on so I get a lot of writing done. That's my substitute for television.
Gore Vidal
Presidents have absolutely gone against the will of Congress. Congress hasn't declared a war since December 7, 1941, and yet we've been at war ever since with somebody or other in order to justify the war machine. Now we have alienated almost the entire earth
Gore Vidal
Everybody has two legs, two lobes to the brain which is why we tend to be interested in symmetry, always balancing things.
Gore Vidal
...you will do more harm than good by attempting to supplant old dogmas and customs with new dogmas. It will be the same in the end except that the old is less militant, less dangerous than a new order imposed by enthusiasts.
Gore Vidal
There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.
Gore Vidal
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
Truman Capote has made lying an art. A minor art.
Gore Vidal
I might become an ascetic, live in India. A little rice is about the best I can do now.
Gore Vidal
What is a political party but a conspiracy?
Gore Vidal
Before the cards that one is dealt by life are the cards that fate has dealt: one's family.
Gore Vidal
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
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
Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.
Gore Vidal
I'd still like to be the President, of course, and I think the best way to do that would be to raise an army and seize the Capital. This strikes me as true democracy.
Gore Vidal