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
clever half population
Half the American population no longer reads newspapers: plainly, they are the clever half.
thinking bits gore
The Gores, I think, are a bit brighter than the Bushes, historically speaking.
wise power simple
It is natural for men to want power. But to seek power actively takes a temperament baffling to both the simple and the wise. The simple cannot fathom how any man would dare presume to prevail, while the wise are amazed that any reasonable man would want the world, assuming he could get it.
sex phases way
Sex is a continuum. You go through different phases along life's way... and if you don't, you've been sort of cheated.
price-tag careers california
When Ronald Reagan's career in show business came to an end, he was hired to impersonate, first, a California governor and then an American president who would reduce taxes for his employers, the Southern and Western New Rich, much of whose money came from the defence industries. There is nothing unusual about this arrangement. All recent presidents have had their price-tags.
men swings tree
There is hardly an American male of my generation who has not at one time or another tried to master the victory cry of the great ape as it issued from the androgynous chest of Johnny Weissmuller, to the accompaniment of thousands of arms and legs snapping during attempts to swing from tree to tree in the backyards of the Republic.
children class doctors
Most writers are middle-class and are the children of doctors or lawyers.
photography art average
For half a century photography has been the "art form" of the untalented. Obviously some pictures are more satisfactory than others, but where is credit due? To the designer of the camera? to the finger on the button? to the law of averages?
moving presidential fever
When the Presidential virus attacks the system there is a tendency for the patient in his fever to move from the Right or the Left to the Center where the curative votes are.
trying reform fixed
I am a correctionist. If something is wrong in society, it must be fixed. At least one should try to fix it.
ordinary hills capitol-hill
I came out of Capitol Hill. Well, that's just not an ordinary background for a writer of the ordinary American sort.
satire audience ifs
If satire is to be effective, the audience must be aware of the thing satirized.
truth certain unbelievable
There are certain truths so true that they are practically unbelievable.
art writing literary-theory
Writers who teach tend to prefer literary theory to literature and tenure to all else. Writers who do not teach prefer the contemplation of Careers to art of any kind.