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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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Gore Vidal
Age: 86 †
Born: 1925
Born: October 3
Died: 2012
Died: July 31
Actor
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Journalist
Literary Critic
Non-Fiction Writer
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
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West Point
New York
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
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More quotes by Gore Vidal

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There is no such thing as a true account of anything.
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A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is ability to articulate human relationships.
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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.
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As one gets older, litigation replaces sex.
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Constant work, constant writing and constant revision. The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge. What he takes in he takes in normally the way any person takes in experience. But it is what is done with it in his mind, if he is a real writer, that makes his art.
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What is a political party but a conspiracy?
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People are worse educated than they used to be. Certainly they are not very interested in reading books, as opposed to watching television, movies. They are used to getting things through the eye and the ear. In a small way, literature goes on being written, but few people like it. Once it's bureaucratized by the schoolteachers, the game's up.
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You can only have a war with another country. You can't have a war with bad temper or a war against paranoids.
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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
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The brain that doesn't feed itself, eats itself.
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Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.
Gore Vidal
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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.
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...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.
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Don't ever make the mistake with people like me thinking we are looking for heroes. There aren't any and if there were, they would be killed immediately. I'm never surprised by bad behaviour. I expect it.
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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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I'm not for real revolutions, because they always bring you the opposite of what you want. You very seldom get what you want if you have a violent revolution.
Gore Vidal
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Most writers write books that they wouldn't read. I ought to know I've done it myself.
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I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.
Gore Vidal
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Love, like a sense of humor, is now claimed by everyone even though Love, like a sense of humor, is rather more rare than not, and to most of us poor muddlers unbearable at full strength.
Gore Vidal
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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