Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidalwas an American writerand a public intellectual known for his patrician manner, epigrammatic wit, and polished style of writing...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth3 October 1925
CityWest Point, NY
CountryUnited States of America
war mean doubt
Little Bush says we are at war, but we are not at war because to be at war Congress has to vote for it. He says we are at war on terror, but that is a metaphor, though I doubt if he knows what that means. It's like having a war on dandruff, it's endless and pointless.
winning enough loses
It is not enough merely to win; others must lose.
cynical problem realistic
I don't seem to be cynical to myself but how what I say goes down with others is their problem. I'm realistic.
usurpers succeed patriot
Traitors who prevail are patriots; usurpers who succeed are divine emperors.
fall hands theatre
The worst thing to happen to Lincoln - aside from the unfortunate incident at Ford's theatre - was to fall into the hands of Carl Sandburg.
punishment ideas religion
The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttress; you need a religion if you are terrified of death.
book writing age
I started to read my first book at about the age of six. I started to write a book simultaneously. Not to compete, just to augment. And that's how one starts. Or I started.
telling-the-truth journalist
a writer must always tell the truth (unless he's a journalist)
believe gay fighting
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.
Always a godfather, never a god.
race disaster humans
Monotheism is easily the greatest disaster to befall the human race.
strong eye squinting
We are given our place in time as we are given our eyes: weak, strong, clear, squinting, the thing is not ours to choose. Well, this has been a squinting, walleyed time to be born in.
people adjectives normal
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.
reading thinking contemporary
I don't think contemporary writers spend a lot of time reading each other. Particularly writers of the same nationality.