Gore Vidal citations (164 citations, Page 3)

On fascism http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=342 2000s, What I've Learned (2008), Gore Vidal's America (2009)

“I'm not a conspiracy theorist - I'm a conspiracy analyst.”

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Gore Vidal

Quoted in The Guardian, by Ryszard Kapuściński, in "Vidal salon" https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/may/05/featuresreviews.guardianreview14 (5 May 2007) 2000s

“As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.”

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Gore Vidal

1990s, The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (1992)

“Despite all evidence to the contrary I do not believe humans innately cruel, but they fear change of any kind.”

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Gore Vidal

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 5, Libanius

“You know, I've been around the ruling class all my life, and I've been quite aware of their total contempt for the people of the country.”

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Gore Vidal

On the Media http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=345 2000s, What I've Learned (2008), Gore Vidal's America (2009)

“After four centuries, Montaigne's curious genius still has that effect on his readers and, time and again, one finds in his self-portrait one's own most brilliant aperçus (the ones that somehow we forgot to write down and so forgot) restored to us in his essays—attempts—to assay—value—himself in his own time as well as, if he was on the subject, all time, if there is such a thing.”

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Gore Vidal

"Montaigne"
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)

“It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, however suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true.”

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Gore Vidal

"French Letters: The Theory of the New Novel," http://books.google.com/books?id=U_YmAQAAIAAJ&q=%22It+is+the+spirit+of+the+age+to+believe+that+any+fact+no+matter+how+suspect+is+superior+to+any+imaginative+exercise+no+matter+how+true%22&pg=PA317#v=onepage Encounter magazine (December 1967) "French Letters: Theories of the New Novel," http://books.google.com/books?id=T4lBAAAAIAAJ&q=%22It+is+the+spirit+of+the+age+to+believe+that+any+fact+no+matter+how+suspect+is+superior+to+any+imaginative+exercise+no+matter+how+true%22&pg=PA24#v=onepage Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship (1969) 1960s

“Liberal' comes from the Latin liberalis, which means pertaining to a free man. In politics, to be liberal is to want to extend democracy through change and reform. One can see why the word had to be erased from our political lexicon.”

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Gore Vidal

"America First? America Last? America at Last?," Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992)
1990s

“We do not, of course, write literary criticism at all now. Academe has won the battle in which Wilson fought so fiercely on the other side. Ambitious English teachers now invent systems that have nothing to do with literature or life but everything to do with those games that must be played in order for them to rise in the academic bureaucracy. Their works are empty indeed. But then, their works are not meant to be full. They are to be taught, not read. The long dialogue has broken down. Fortunately, as Flaubert pointed out, the worst thing about the present is the future. One day there will be no… But I have been asked not to give the game away. Meanwhile, I shall drop a single hint: Only construct!”

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Gore Vidal

"Edmund Wilson: This Critic and This Gin and These Shoes", closing lines
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)

“As one gets older, litigation replaces sex.”

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Gore Vidal

Quoted in profile by Martin Amis, "Mr. Vidal: Unpatriotic Gore" (1977) in The Moronic Inferno (1987).
1970s

“Never pass up a chance to have sex or appear on television.”

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Gore Vidal

Quoted by Bob Chieger, Was It Good For You, Too? (1983).
1980s

“Actually, there is no such thing as a homosexual person, any more than there is such a thing as a heterosexual person. The words are adjectives describing sexual acts, not people. The sexual acts are entirely normal; if they were not, no one would perform them.”

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Gore Vidal

"Sex Is Politics" (1979)
1980s, The Second American Revolution (1983)

“The malice of a true Christian attempting to destroy an opponent is something unique in the world. No other religion ever considered it necessary to destroy others because they did not share the same beliefs. At worst, another man's belief might inspire amusement or contempt—the Egyptians and their animal gods, for instance. Yet those who worshipped the Bull did not try to murder those who worshipped the Snake, or to convert them by force from Snake to Bull. No evil ever entered the world quite so vividly or on such a vast scale as Christianity did.”

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Gore Vidal

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 7, Priscus

“American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.”

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Gore Vidal livre Two Sisters

Two Sisters: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel http://books.google.com/books?id=xnJbAAAAMAAJ&q=&quot;American+writers+want+to+be+not+good+but+great+and+so+are+neither&quot; (1970) 1970s

“On the throne of the world, any delusion becomes fact.”

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Gore Vidal

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 12

“Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine.”

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Gore Vidal

"America First? America Last? America at Last?," Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992)
1990s

“Nothing that Shakespeare ever invented was to equal Lincoln's invention of himself and, in the process, us.”

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Gore Vidal

"Lincoln and the Priests of Academe"
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)

“The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved — Judaism, Christianity, Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal — God is the Omnipotent Father — hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates. The sky-god is a jealous god, of course. He requires total obedience from everyone on earth, as he is in place not for just one tribe but for all creation. Those who would reject him must be converted or killed for their own good. Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose.”

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Gore Vidal

"America First? America Last? America at Last?" https://archive.is/20121212151230/www.dce.harvard.edu/pubs/lowell/gvidal.html, Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992) 1990s

“In a nation that has developed to a high art advertising, the creator who refuses to advertise himself is immediately suspected of having no product worth selling.”

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Gore Vidal

"William Dean Howells" (1983)
1980s, At Home (1988)

“Vengeance must end somewhere, and what better place to stop than at the prince?”

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Gore Vidal

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 2

“The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country — and we haven't seen them since.”

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Gore Vidal

"The State of the Union" (1975)
1970s, Homage to Daniel Shays : Collected Essays (1972), Matters of Fact and Fiction : Essays 1973 - 1976 (1978)